God is not dead

Soul Winner

Was gonna post this in the Christianity forum but heck I think it would have a better home here: Taken from www.christianitytoday.org

God Is Not Dead Yet
How current philosophers argue for his existence.
William Lane Craig

July 3, 2008

You might think from the recent spate of atheist best-sellers that belief in God has become intellectually indefensible for thinking people today. But a look at these books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, among others, quickly reveals that the so-called New Atheism lacks intellectual muscle. It is blissfully ignorant of the revolution that has taken place in Anglo-American philosophy. It reflects the scientism of a bygone generation rather than the contemporary intellectual scene.

That generation's cultural high point came on April 8, 1966, when Time magazine carried a lead story for which the cover was completely black except for three words emblazoned in bright red letters: "Is God Dead?" The story described the "death of God" movement, then current in American theology.

But to paraphrase Mark Twain, the news of God's demise was premature. For at the same time theologians were writing God's obituary, a new generation of young philosophers was rediscovering his vitality.

Back in the 1940s and '50s, many philosophers believed that talk about God, since it is not verifiable by the five senses, is meaningless—actual nonsense. This verificationism finally collapsed, in part because philosophers realized that verificationism itself could not be verified! The collapse of verificationism was the most important philosophical event of the 20th century. Its downfall meant that philosophers were free once again to tackle traditional problems of philosophy that verificationism had suppressed. Accompanying this resurgence of interest in traditional philosophical questions came something altogether unanticipated: a renaissance of Christian philosophy.

The turning point probably came in 1967, with the publication of Alvin Plantinga's God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God. In Plantinga's train has followed a host of Christian philosophers, writing in scholarly journals and participating in professional conferences and publishing with the finest academic presses. The face of Anglo-American philosophy has been transformed as a result. Atheism, though perhaps still the dominant viewpoint at the American university, is a philosophy in retreat.

In a recent article, University of Western Michigan philosopher Quentin Smith laments what he calls "the desecularization of academia that evolved in philosophy departments since the late 1960s." He complains about naturalists' passivity in the face of the wave of "intelligent and talented theists entering academia today." Smith concludes, "God is not 'dead' in academia; he returned to life in the late 1960s and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments."

The renaissance of Christian philosophy has been accompanied by a resurgence of interest in natural theology, that branch of theology that seeks to prove God's existence apart from divine revelation. The goal of natural theology is to justify a broadly theistic worldview, one that is common among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and deists. While few would call them compelling proofs, all of the traditional arguments for God's existence, not to mention some creative new arguments, find articulate defenders today.

The Arguments

First, let's take a quick tour of some current arguments of natural theology. We'll look at them in their condensed form. This has the advantage of making the logic of the arguments very clear. The bare bones of the arguments can then be fleshed out with further discussion. A second crucial question—what good is rational argument in our supposedly postmodern age?—will be dealt with in the next section.

The cosmological argument. Versions of this argument are defended by Alexander Pruss, Timothy O'Connor, Stephen Davis, Robert Koons, and Richard Swinburne, among others. A simple formulation of this argument is:

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God.

This argument is logically valid, so the only question is the truth of the premises. Premise (3) is undeniable for any sincere seeker of truth, so the question comes down to (1) and (2).

Premise (1) seems quite plausible. Imagine that you're walking through the woods and come upon a translucent ball lying on the forest floor. You would find quite bizarre the claim that the ball just exists inexplicably. And increasing the size of the ball, even until it becomes co-extensive with the cosmos, would do nothing to eliminate the need for an explanation of its existence.

Premise (2) might at first appear controversial, but it is in fact synonymous with the usual atheist claim that if God does not exist, then the universe has no explanation of its existence. Besides, (2) is quite plausible in its own right. For an external cause of the universe must be beyond space and time and therefore cannot be physical or material. Now there are only two kinds of things that fit that description: either abstract objects, like numbers, or else an intelligent mind. But abstract objects are causally impotent. The number 7, for example, can't cause anything. Therefore, it follows that the explanation of the universe is an external, transcendent, personal mind that created the universe—which is what most people have traditionally meant by "God."

The kalam cosmological argument. This version of the argument has a rich Islamic heritage. Stuart Hackett, David Oderberg, Mark Nowacki, and I have defended the kalam argument. Its formulation is simple:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Premise (1) certainly seems more plausibly true than its denial. The idea that things can pop into being without a cause is worse than magic. Nonetheless, it's remarkable how many nontheists, under the force of the evidence for premise (2), have denied (1) rather than acquiesce in the argument's conclusion.

Atheists have traditionally denied (2) in favor of an eternal universe. But there are good reasons, both philosophical and scientific, to doubt that the universe had no beginning. Philosophically, the idea of an infinite past seems absurd. If the universe never had a beginning, then the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. Not only is this a very paradoxical idea, but it also raises the problem: How could the present event ever arrive if an infinite number of prior events had to elapse first?

Moreover, a remarkable series of discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics over the last century has breathed new life into the kalam argument. We now have fairly strong evidence that the universe is not eternal in the past, but had an absolute beginning about 13.7 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event known as the Big Bang.

The Big Bang is so amazing because it represents the origin of the universe from literally nothing. For all matter and energy, even physical space and time themselves, came into being at the Big Bang. While some cosmologists have tried to craft alternative theories aimed at avoiding this absolute beginning, none of these theories have commended themselves to the scientific community.

In fact, in 2003 cosmologists Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin were able to prove that any universe that is, on average, in a state of cosmic expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have had an absolute beginning. According to Vilenkin, "Cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning." It follows then that there must be a transcendent cause that brought the universe into being, a cause that, as we have seen, is plausibly timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and personal.

The teleological argument. The old design argument remains as robust today as ever, defended in various forms by Robin Collins, John Leslie, Paul Davies, William Dembski, Michael Denton, and others. Advocates of the Intelligent Design movement have continued the tradition of finding examples of design in biological systems. But the cutting edge of the discussion focuses on the recently discovered, remarkable fine-tuning of the cosmos for life. This finetuning is of two sorts. First, when the laws of nature are expressed as mathematical equations, they contain certain constants, such as the gravitational constant. The mathematical values of these constants are not determined by the laws of nature. Second, there are certain arbitrary quantities that are just part of the initial conditions of the universe—for example, the amount of entropy.

These constants and quantities fall into an extraordinarily narrow range of life-permitting values. Were these constants and quantities to be altered by less than a hair's breadth, the life-permitting balance would be destroyed, and life would not exist.

Accordingly, we may argue:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

Premise (1) simply lists the present options for explaining the fine-tuning. The key premise is therefore (2). The first alternative, physical necessity, says that the constants and quantities must have the values they do. This alternative has little to commend it. The laws of nature are consistent with a wide range of values for the constants and quantities. For example, the most promising candidate for a unified theory of physics to date, superstring theory or "M-Theory," allows a "cosmic landscape" of around 10500 different possible universes governed by the laws of nature, and only an infinitesimal proportion of these can support life.

As for chance, contemporary theorists increasingly recognize that the odds against fine-tuning are simply insurmountable unless one is prepared to embrace the speculative hypothesis that our universe is but one member of a randomly ordered, infinite ensemble of universes (a.k.a. the multiverse). In that ensemble of worlds, every physically possible world is realized, and obviously we could observe only a world where the constants and quantities are consistent with our existence. This is where the debate rages today. Physicists such as Oxford University's Roger Penrose launch powerful arguments against any appeal to a multiverse as a way of explaining away fine-tuning.

The moral argument. A number of ethicists, such as Robert Adams, William Alston, Mark Linville, Paul Copan, John Hare, Stephen Evans, and others have defended "divine command" theories of ethics, which support various moral arguments for God's existence. One such argument:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

By objective values and duties, one means values and duties that are valid and binding independent of human opinion. A good many atheists and theists alike concur with premise (1). For given a naturalistic worldview, human beings are just animals, and activity that we count as murder, torture, and rape is natural and morally neutral in the animal kingdom. Moreover, if there is no one to command or prohibit certain actions, how can we have moral obligations or prohibitions?

Premise (2) might seem more disputable, but it will probably come as a surprise to most laypeople to learn that (2) is widely accepted among philosophers. For any argument against objective morals will tend to be based on premises that are less evident than the reality of moral values themselves, as apprehended in our moral experience. Most philosophers therefore do recognize objective moral distinctions.

Nontheists will typically counter the moral argument with a dilemma: Is something good because God wills it, or does God will something because it is good? The first alternative makes good and evil arbitrary, whereas the second makes the good independent of God. Fortunately, the dilemma is a false one. Theists have traditionally taken a third alternative: God wills something because he is good. That is to say, what Plato called "the Good" is the moral nature of God himself. God is by nature loving, kind, impartial, and so on. He is the paradigm of goodness. Therefore, the good is not independent of God.

Moreover, God's commandments are a necessary expression of his nature. His commands to us are therefore not arbitrary but are necessary reflections of his character. This gives us an adequate foundation for the affirmation of objective moral values and duties.

The ontological argument. Anselm's famous argument has been reformulated and defended by Alvin Plantinga, Robert Maydole, Brian Leftow, and others. God, Anselm observes, is by definition the greatest being conceivable. If you could conceive of anything greater than God, then that would be God. Thus, God is the greatest conceivable being, a maximally great being. So what would such a being be like? He would be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, and he would exist in every logically possible world. But then we can argue:

1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
7. Therefore, God exists.

Now it might be a surprise to learn that steps 2–7 of this argument are relatively uncontroversial. Most philosophers would agree that if God's existence is even possible, then he must exist. So the whole question is: Is God's existence possible? The atheist has to maintain that it's impossible that God exists. He has to say that the concept of God is incoherent, like the concept of a married bachelor or a round square. But the problem is that the concept of God just doesn't appear to be incoherent in that way. The idea of a being which is all-powerful, allknowing, and all-good in every possible world seems perfectly coherent. And so long as God's existence is even possible, it follows that God must exist.

Why Bother?

Of course, there are replies and counterreplies to all of these arguments, and no one imagines that a consensus will be reached. Indeed, after a period of passivity, there are now signs that the sleeping giant of atheism has been roused from his dogmatic slumbers and is fighting back. J. Howard Sobel and Graham Oppy have written large, scholarly books critical of the arguments of natural theology, and Cambridge University Press released its Companion to Atheism last year. Nonetheless, the very presence of the debate in academia is itself a sign of how healthy and vibrant a theistic worldview is today.

However all this may be, some might think that the resurgence of natural theology in our time is merely so much labor lost. For don't we live in a postmodern culture in which appeals to such apologetic arguments are no longer effective? Rational arguments for the truth of theism are no longer supposed to work. Some Christians therefore advise that we should simply share our narrative and invite people to participate in it.

This sort of thinking is guilty of a disastrous misdiagnosis of contemporary culture. The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics. But, of course, that's not postmodernism; that's modernism! That's just old-line verificationism, which held that anything you can't prove with your five senses is a matter of personal taste. We live in a culture that remains deeply modernist.

Otherwise, how do we make sense of the popularity of the New Atheism? Dawkins and his ilk are indelibly modernist and even scientistic in their approach. On the postmodernist reading of contemporary culture, their books should have fallen like water on a stone. Instead, people lap them up eagerly, convinced that religious belief is folly.

Seen in this light, tailoring our gospel to a postmodern culture is self-defeating. By laying aside our best apologetic weapons of logic and evidence, we ensure modernism's triumph over us. If the church adopts this course of action, the consequences in the next generation will be catastrophic. Christianity will be reduced to but another voice in a cacophony of competing voices, each sharing its own narrative and none commending itself as the objective truth about reality. Meanwhile, scientific naturalism will continue to shape our culture's view of how the world really is.

A robust natural theology may well be necessary for the gospel to be effectively heard in Western society today. In general, Western culture is deeply post-Christian. It is the product of the Enlightenment, which introduced into European culture the leaven of secularism that has by now permeated Western society. While most of the original Enlightenment thinkers were themselves theists, the majority of Western intellectuals today no longer considers theological knowledge to be possible. The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.

Properly understanding our culture is important because the gospel is never heard in isolation. It is always heard against the background of the current cultural milieu. A person raised in a cultural milieu in which Christianity is still seen as an intellectually viable option will display an openness to the gospel. But you may as well tell the secularist to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ!

Christians who depreciate natural theology because "no one comes to faith through intellectual arguments" are therefore tragically shortsighted. For the value of natural theology extends far beyond one's immediate evangelistic contacts. It is the broader task of Christian apologetics, including natural theology, to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women. It thereby gives people the intellectual permission to believe when their hearts are moved.

As we progress further into the 21st century, I anticipate that natural theology will be an increasingly relevant and vital preparation for people to receive the gospel.

William Lane Craig is research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology. He is the coeditor with J. P. Moreland of the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. His website is reasonablefaith.org. All of the traditional arguments for God's existence find intelligent and articulate defenders in the contemporary philosophical scene.

Mena

Of course god is not dead. For that he would have had to exist in the first place.

Zillah

This is the same old tired nonesense and its all been debunked before.

Soul Winner wrote: »

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God.

(1) is an assumption, we do not know that the universe has an explanation.
(2) is a comically absurd leap of logic. Even if the universe has an explanation God is an extraordinarily complex one that defies occams razor.

Also, if the universe has a cause then that cause is part of the universe and is subject to the same argument. Yay, infinite causal loop.

This argument is logically valid

No its not, its completely retarded.

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The premise is completely unfounded. Any cause would, by definition, be part of the universe.

The teleological argument. The old design argument remains as robust today as ever -- Advocates of the Intelligent Design movement have continued the tradition of finding examples of design in biological systems.

This deserves nothing more than a disdainful shaking of the head and derisive laughter.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due either to physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

(2) is utterly invalid, as any universe that can be observed would by definition have such constants.

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Objective moral values and duties do not exist.

I must insist that anyone who opposes this position proves otherwise. Popularity is not objectivity.

1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
7. Therefore, God exists.

It is possible that a maximally great Island exists etc.

Perfect island, perfect hat, perfect pineapple...



Is this really the best that millennia of God worship has to throw at us? Is there not a single pro-God argument that is based on something other than faulty a priori logic? Infinitely powerful entities with a habit of directly interfering with human life should really leave more of a trail than...well...nothing.

Soul Winner

Mena wrote: »

Of course god is not dead. For that he would have had to exist in the first place.

Well that settles it for me

Joking aside though I respect your position that 'of course he's not dead, for he would have to exist in the first place' in order to die at some point, which equates to the position that if He existed in the first place then it logically follows that He still exists being eternal and all. So yeah He either never ever ever existed and thus cannot exist and therefore will not ever exist OR always did and still does exist. Tis one or t'other. The OP gives some positive arguments for the existence of God what are the positive arguments for the non existence of God? Or what are the rebuttals to the positive arguments that God exists?

Oh and I've heard all the "He just doesn't exist just like invisible pink unicorns don't exist" arguments before, yaaaawwwnnn!!! Give us some positive ‘God doesn't exist arguments’ because such and such. We are not talking about invisible pink unicorns. Let someone who wants to disprove their existence do so, I don’t care if they do or don’t exist or if there is in fact a teapot orbiting Mars again that is not an argument to prove that God doesn’t exist, it is just an empty rebuttal to positive arguments.

Zillah

I believe its a more dramatic iteration of the notion that "Belief in God is dead"...

CerebralCortex

If he does (he doesn't) exist who's god is he? Does this not make religions redundant? It was this kind of thinking that brought me happily to atheism.

Soul Winner

Zillah wrote: »

This is the same old tired nonesense and its all been debunked before.

When? By whom?

Zillah wrote: »

(1) is an assumption, we do not know that the universe has an explanation.

Is it possible that it might have an explanation though? And if not why not?

Zillah wrote: »

(2) is a comically absurd leap of logic. Even if the universe has an explanation God is an extraordinarily complex one that defies occams razor.

What does that prove though? When they rewind the universe like a video tape back to its furthest reaches they find that the laws of physics as we understand them do not apply so why should Occam’s Razor apply?

Zillah wrote: »

Also, if the universe has a cause then that cause is part of the universe and is subject to the same argument. Yay, infinite causal loop.

I'm intrigued please go on. If the universe has its beginning in a big bang which is the most accepted and attested to hypothesis in science today then why would its causal agent be subject to the same laws that govern the caused universe? I really want to know what makes you think this is the case.

Zillah wrote: »

No its not, its completely retarded.

Explain why though. We know that you think it's retarded but if you were my college professor then I would have to ask you why you think that.

Zillah wrote: »

The premise is completely unfounded. Any cause would, by definition, be part of the universe.

No it wouldn't. If the universe came into existence from a singularity of nothingness then the cause for its beginning cannot be part of what it caused. It is outside of space-time which also has it beginning in the big bang if we are to submit to that theory which as already stated is the most accepted and attested to in science today as to how the universe came into being.

Zillah wrote: »

This deserves nothing more than a disdainful shaking of the head and derisive laughter.

Why though? I'm sure you broke down laughing but tell us why. There are former ardent atheists who now subscribe to the view that the universe was designed for life due to the life permitting attributes in the early universe. For this alone to come about by chance is in the order of magnitude more unlikely that it cannot be comprehended, forget Occam’s razor.

Zillah wrote: »

(2) is utterly invalid, as any universe that can be observed would by definition have such constants.

Huh? ACCORDING TO GROWING NUMBERS OF SCIENTISTS, the laws and constants of nature are so "finely-tuned," and so many "coincidences" have occurred to allow for the possibility of life, the universe must have come into existence through intentional planning and intelligence. In fact, this "fine-tuning" is so pronounced, and the "coincidences" are so numerous, many scientists have come to espouse "The Anthropic Principle," which contends that the universe was brought into existence intentionally for the sake of producing mankind. Even those who do not accept The Anthropic Principle admit to the "fine-tuning" and conclude that the universe is "too contrived" to be a chance event. More here

Zillah wrote: »

Objective moral values and duties do not exist.

I must insist that anyone who opposes this position proves otherwise. Popularity is not objectivity.

Then by your definition they do exist, because many people including atheists believe that objective moral values do in fact exist, they just don't attribute them to have come from God. They call them evolutionary byproducts or something like that.

Zillah wrote: »

It is possible that a maximally great Island exists etc.

Perfect island, perfect hat, perfect pineapple...

That's just more empty rebuttals. To say that its also possible that a maximally great island exists is not proving that God does not exist.

Zillah wrote: »

Is this really the best that millennia of God worship has to throw at us?

Hey you haven't even begun to give positives for the proof that there is no God, so until you do people are entitled to believe in Him without being adjudge as primitive for doing so. If you cannot prove its simple primitiveness by showing that there is no God then your methods are also primitive at this point.

Zillah wrote: »

Is there not a single pro-God argument that is based on something other than faulty a priori logic?

I thought you liked logic? And a priori assumptions for that matter? You pre-conclude that God cannot exist without any proof whatsoever. That my friend is an a priori assumption.

Zillah wrote: »

Infinitely powerful entities with a habit of directly interfering with human life should really leave more of a trail than...well...nothing.

Well what would constitute a valid trail IYO? Every molecule in the universe having the label "Made by God" stamped on it?

Galvasean

God is not dead, he's just sleeping..

Dont be at yourself

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God.

Ah, but what about steps 5, 6 and 7?

5. If God has an explanation for His existence, that explanation is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
6. God exists (see point 4)
7. Therefore the explanation of God's existence is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Soul Winner

CerebralCortex wrote: »

If he does (he doesn't) exist who's god is he? Does this not make religions redundant? It was this kind of thinking that brought me happily to atheism.

Well yeah it sort of does unless one of them is actually right. Most far eastern religions don't believe in a God just a reality that is beyond our reality so they cannot really be called religions in the sense that they belive in a creator all powerful being called God. So what we are left with are for the most part are the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They all believe in the same God (the God Abraham) they just differ when it come to Jesus. The Jews think Jesus was a blasphemer because of the outrageous claims He made about himself. Muslim believe He was a great prophet second only to Mohamed, who did many miracles. And the Christian believe He was God incarnate in the flesh who rose from the dead, they could be all wrong. And sure even if we can prove that all religions are wrong then that still does not prove that there is no God, it just proves that all religions are wrong nothing else.

CerebralCortex

Certainly.

Sangre

As Zillah showed quite well the article's most basic points are easily rebuttable. Like most articles i read on this they make a leap from one fact to a conclusion (usually using poor William of Ockham's grave as a jump board).

1. Universe exists
2. We don't fully understand why
3. ????
4. God exists

I don't know about most people but I'm perfectly happy admitting my ignorance and society's ignorance in a huge number of areas explaining our existence and the universe's. What I won't do is assume the answer is the most complex, unexplainable and unlikely one we can think of. But I guess thats because I'm intellectually arrogant.

Zillah

Soul Winner wrote: »

When? By whom?

Perhaps you have not encountered them before, but these arguments have been making the rounds for years. We've dealt with every single one of them here on this forum at one stage or another. I don't mean for that to be a rebuttal, merely pointing out that this is nothing new.

Is it possible that it might have an explanation though? And if not why not?

The universe is all that exists. We don't have a verb tense that transcends all concepts of energy, space and time, but if we did, I'd conjugate "exist" into that tense. Nothing can cause "the universe" as if something caused it then that thing is a thing and therefore a part of the universe, so we must explain what caused that thing if we're to answer the question of what caused the universe.

What does that prove though? When they rewind the universe like a video tape back to its furthest reaches they find that the laws of physics as we understand them do not apply so why should Occam’s Razor apply?

Well that's just the thing. Logic, cause and effect and other such notions may be an attribute of the universe that we live in. We don't know what the hell existed "before" the universe, what caused it, if it needs a cause, if that cause was anything special or quite mundane. We don't know, and anyone that claims they have an answer, such as "God did it" is making stuff up.

I'm intrigued please go on. If the universe has its beginning in a big bang which is the most accepted and attested to hypothesis in science today then why would its causal agent be subject to the same laws that govern the caused universe? I really want to know what makes you think this is the case.

Its a matter of definition. The universe is all that was, is and ever shall be. By definition one cannot be outside the universe.

Explain why though. We know that you think it's retarded but if you were my college professor then I would have to ask you why you think that.

In addition to what I said above, I'll explain this: There is absolutely no evidence or argument for a hypothetical universe causing agent to be anything like what human religions describe as God. If occams razor and such like do not exist then it could be anything or nothing, and if they do apply then its an absurdly irrational leap of logic to go from "Something must have caused the universe" to "An extra-universal, all seeing, all powerful, all loving super intelligence created it".

No it wouldn't. If the universe came into existence from a singularity of nothingness then the cause for its beginning cannot be part of what it caused.

You're not getting it. The universe is everything. Everything everything everything. If the universe has a cause then that's not the cause of the universe, just part of the universe changing other parts of the universe.

Why though? I'm sure you broke down laughing but tell us why. There are former ardent atheists who now subscribe to the view that the universe was designed for life due to the life permitting attributes in the early universe. For this alone to come about by chance is in the order of magnitude more unlikely that it cannot be comprehended, forget Occam’s razor.

1 - Intelligent Design is a broken hypothesis. Its been thoroughly demolished by real scientists. Only the most stubborn, irrational (or ignorant) people cling to it.

2 - Any universe that can be perceived would have such "suspiciously" finel tuned parameters. Its like a puddle going "Wow! Who made this perfectly designed hole for me to live in!" A puddle will always have a hole that is suited to it, in the same way sentient life will always have a universe suited to it.

The "derisive laughter" part was directed at Intelligent Design. When I say its been thoroughly debunked, I do mean thoroughly. The eye, the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting mechanism, the immune system; they were all held up as perfect examples of intelligent design and have since been very well explained by evolutionary theory.

Intelligent Design was an ingenius notion at first, a very clever way of looking for the hand of God...but the thing is, it showed there was no hand of God. Its faith-fuelled proponents just can't accept that.

Huh? ACCORDING TO GROWING NUMBERS OF SCIENTISTS, the laws and constants of nature are so "finely-tuned," and so many "coincidences" have occurred to allow for the possibility of life, the universe must have come into existence through intentional planning and intelligence. In fact, this "fine-tuning" is so pronounced, and the "coincidences" are so numerous, many scientists have come to espouse "The Anthropic Principle," which contends that the universe was brought into existence intentionally for the sake of producing mankind. Even those who do not accept The Anthropic Principle admit to the "fine-tuning" and conclude that the universe is "too contrived" to be a chance event. More here

Refer to my puddle example above. A universe that could allow for intelligent life by definition has to have such parameters.

Then by your definition they do exist, because many people including atheists believe that objective moral values do in fact exist, they just don't attribute them to have come from God. They call them evolutionary byproducts or something like that.

I think you misread my post. I said popularity does not equal objectivity. Morality is a result of evolution. There is no ideal, perfect, objectively correct morality in existence. We simply have behavioural biases that allowed our ancestors to function together.

That's just more empty rebuttals. To say that its also possible that a maximally great island exists is not proving that God does not exist.

Its an argument that shows the flaw in the logic. The "maximally great" argument can be used to "prove" the existence of an infinite number of perfect things. Its useless, it doesn't mean anything.

Hey you haven't even begun to give positives for the proof that there is no God, so until you do people are entitled to believe in Him without being adjudge as primitive for doing so. If you cannot prove its simple primitiveness by showing that there is no God then your methods are also primitive at this point.

Wait, I said nothing about "primitive".

That aside, the burden of proof lies with the one making the claim. I'm sure this has been explained to you before. There are an infinite number of things that one can claim exists, we dismiss their existence unless evidence is presented to the contrary. Vampires, fairies, God, invisible unicorns. Frankly I'm tired of explaining this so often.

I thought you liked logic? And a priori assumptions for that matter? You pre-conclude that God cannot exist without any proof whatsoever. That my friend is an a priori assumption.

I like good logic. I do not pre-conclude that God cannot exist, I, and the rest of humanity, operate on the initial presumption that the universe is as we can perceive it. Everyone uses this initial assumption, its just that in the case of religion otherwise rational people throw this essential principle aside.

Well what would constitute a valid trail IYO? Every molecule in the universe having the label "Made by God" stamped on it?

He could have done that! If he existed that is. I'm talking about the parting of the red sea, the miracles of Jesus, the supposed constant intervention through prayer...all those ways in which the faithful claim God interacts with the universe leave the exact kind of evidence as he didn't exist. I find that just a little too convenient. Don't you?

Its just really suspicious that the amount of obviously divine manifestations in the world has decreased in perfect proportion to our ability to understand the world using science. God is on the run and he has few places left to hide. He used to be in every clap of thunder or successful child birth...now he's retreated to the non-existence before time and space. (Didn't Q do that in Star Trek?)

Zillah

Also, damn you for making such a detailed original post. Normally any one of these arguments could fill a thread.

challengemaster

That was a well needed lol. Thanks for that.

ChocolateSauce

Nietzsche is dead - God

Soul Winner

Zillah wrote: »

Perhaps you have not encountered them before, but these arguments have been making the rounds for years. We've dealt with every single one of them here on this forum at one stage or another. I don't mean for that to be a rebuttal, merely pointing out that this is nothing new.

OK.

Zillah wrote: »

The universe is all that exists. We don't have a verb tense that transcends all concepts of energy, space and time, but if we did, I'd conjugate "exist" into that tense.

Yes but surely if what existed before and caused what we call “the universe” then how can you call it part of the universe that it caused? It might be part of all things that do exist but that includes and is not confined to the universe that we observe. If I make a cup of tea do I become part of that cup of tea? No! If the universe came from a singularity of nothingness and was caused by nothing, then why do we have something instead of just nothing? If all space-time that ever was and is was enveloped into this singularity of nothingness and it by accident organized itself into the universe as we know it by a big bang then why doesn’t this happen all the time? Why don’t things pop into existence from nothingness all the time if that’s the case? Why only the universe? Everything in our universe that we can observe that does come into existence has a prior cause, so why not the universe? I find it harder to believe that everything that is (i.e. the universe) can come into existence from nothing and by nothing than to believe that the universe has a first cause and therefore a first causer be that God or otherwise. How can everything come from nothing and by nothing? Because that is how it happened as science is discovering more and more if God didn’t create it.

Zillah wrote: »

Nothing can cause "the universe" as if something caused it then that thing is a thing and therefore a part of the universe, so we must explain what caused that thing if we're to answer the question of what caused the universe.

Well no I disagree. We don’t have to answer that question in order to know what caused the universe. If we can deduce that I made a cup of tea at 4.30pm today then we do not need to know what made me in order to deduce that it was me who in fact made that cup of tea. Same with the creator of the universe assuming there is one, all we need to know is whether the universe was made or not. We do not need to know who made it in order to find out whether it made the universe. If it can be deduced that the universe has a creator then we do not need to know what created the creator to know that.

Zillah wrote: »

Well that's just the thing. Logic, cause and effect and other such notions may be an attribute of the universe that we live in. We don't know what the hell existed "before" the universe, what caused it, if it needs a cause, if that cause was anything special or quite mundane. We don't know, and anyone that claims they have an answer, such as "God did it" is making stuff up.

No that is not what is being said. What is put forth by atheists is that they absolutely don’t know what created the universe or how it was created or what was there if anything beforehand, but they absolutely know for sure that it wasn’t God. And you talk about leaps of unfounded logic. On one hand you admit that you don’t know who did it but you absolutely know for sure that it wasn’t God. And when it is proposed that the universe has too many attributes finely tune for permitting life as we know it to be mere accidental and by deduction it is postulated that what caused the universe was not part of it and therefore not bound by the laws that hold it together and similarly able to act outside those laws within and outside of the universe you poo poo it as rubbish without any foundation at all. It might well be but you don’t know that yet.

Zillah wrote: »

Its a matter of definition. The universe is all that was, is and ever shall be. By definition one cannot be outside the universe.

I beg to differ. Science which you claim to embrace has given definitive proof with the most current discoveries that the universe was not eternal in the past. It had a beginning. So therefore it was not all that ever was if it had a beginning. It can only be that if it was eternal in the past but it wasn’t as science itself has shown conclusively. But you think that it doesn’t need a causer so therefore you conclude that nothing created the universe and like I said that takes more faith than belief that God it even if that is just made up.

Zillah wrote: »

In addition to what I said above, I'll explain this: There is absolutely no evidence or argument for a hypothetical universe causing agent to be anything like what human religions describe as God.

You sure about that? All the Abrahamic religions believe that God created the universe from nothing. I can give you chapter and verse if you like. That places God outside the universe because He was around before it was created. Most other religions claim that their God formed the worlds from stuff that was already there so you could argue that scientific discoveries do make them void. Not the Abrahamic religions though. They’ve being saying this right from the start.

Zillah wrote: »

If occams razor and such like do not exist then it could be anything or nothing, and if they do apply then its an absurdly irrational leap of logic to go from "Something must have caused the universe" to "An extra-universal, all seeing, all powerful, all loving super intelligence created it".

I disagree. Why can’t the causer assuming there is one, be all powerful, and all loving and so forth? I see no reason to believe that such a being assuming it is the creator cannot have these attributes simply because it is deduced that He is the creator. Why not?

Zillah wrote: »

You're not getting it.

I know.

Zillah wrote: »

The universe is everything. Everything everything everything. If the universe has a cause then that's not the cause of the universe, just part of the universe changing other parts of the universe.

Hold on. “If the universe has a cause then that is not the cause”? How so? How can the cause of the universe not be the cause of the universe?

Zillah wrote: »

1 - Intelligent Design is a broken hypothesis. Its been thoroughly demolished by real scientists. Only the most stubborn, irrational (or ignorant) people cling to it.

Like me?

Zillah wrote: »

2 - Any universe that can be perceived would have such "suspiciously" finel tuned parameters. Its like a puddle going "Wow! Who made this perfectly designed hole for me to live in!" A puddle will always have a hole that is suited to it, in the same way sentient life will always have a universe suited to it.

But if one of those finely tune life permitting parameters is off by percentages of percent then you cannot have a life permitting universe. You either have a universe that expands too quickly for stars to and therefore end up with a universe full of nothing but hydrogen or helium or something , or a universe that expands to slowly and thus squashes all the subatomic particles so that not even atoms can exist never mind anything else up the chain. It is the narrow knife edge of life permitting parameters that the universe is actually on that enables it to permit life as we know it. You may call it chance but I’m open to a creator concept until this concept is totally blown out of the water by science instead of science strengthening it all the time.

Zillah wrote: »

The "derisive laughter" part was directed at Intelligent Design. When I say its been thoroughly debunked, I do mean thoroughly. The eye, the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting mechanism, the immune system; they were all held up as perfect examples of intelligent design and have since been very well explained by evolutionary theory.

I’ve seen Ken Miller’s talk on the bacterial flagellum and I thought he explained very well that there is no need for a designer but it doesn’t prove that they’re wasn’t a designer. And Dawkin’s approach to the development of the eye was pretty poor. It is all hypothesized not proven and only tries to explain it on the basis that no designer need apply. There are many postulated hypothesis which are all based on the assumption that there is no designer. The better approach would be to say that we don’t know if there is a designer and we are not sure if this is how it happened but we are giving it you on the basis that there is no designer.

Zillah wrote: »

Intelligent Design was an ingenius notion at first, a very clever way of looking for the hand of God...but the thing is, it showed there was no hand of God. Its faith-fuelled proponents just can't accept that.

Well personally I don’t need ID in order to have a faith in God. I believe Jesus rose from the dead because I fail to see any other plausible explanation to all the accepted as facts by the majority of historians including atheistic historians in the story itself. But then that’s just me researching something and coming to a conclusion based on that research. If that story is true then it is a supernatural story and cannot be explained in natural terms and should not be.

Zillah wrote: »

Refer to my puddle example above. A universe that could allow for intelligent life by definition has to have such parameters.

A mixture of water, gravity and some sort of indentation in the ground caused the puddle though. What caused water and gravity?

Zillah wrote: »

I think you misread my post. I said popularity does not equal objectivity. Morality is a result of evolution. There is no ideal, perfect, objectively correct morality in existence. We simply have behavioural biases that allowed our ancestors to function together.

If morality is a result of evolution then the doing of some socially unacceptable behaviors like premeditatedly and for no reason at all killing somebody cannot equate to murder any more than a lion killing a zebra equates to murder. Why? Because all we are is accidental, purposeless, meaningless DNA propagating spinoffs of an evolutionary process which accidentally evolved relatively late on the scene, on an infinitesimal and insignificant speck of dust we call planet earth floating around in a hostile meaningless and destined to die in a heat death of the universe along with everything else. Why do we call the killing of children immoral when there are no objective moral values? The fact is that is not only socially unacceptable behavior but reprehensible behavior. Why though? From where comes this morality if not from God?

Zillah wrote: »

Its an argument that shows the flaw in the logic. The "maximally great" argument can be used to "prove" the existence of an infinite number of perfect things. Its useless, it doesn't mean anything.

I agree.

Zillah wrote: »

Wait, I said nothing about "primitive".

I know, I said it for you. I could have used terms that are not so nice that have also been used to describe religious people but I thought I’d be kind and stick with “Primitive”.

Zillah wrote: »

That aside, the burden of proof lies with the one making the claim. I'm sure this has been explained to you before. There are an infinite number of things that one can claim exists, we dismiss their existence unless evidence is presented to the contrary. Vampires, fairies, God, invisible unicorns. Frankly I'm tired of explaining this so often.

I’m tired of reading it. What you fail to see is that what is presented to you is not accepted as adequate by you which is not our fault. You want molecules marked with “Made by God” sorry but you’re not going to get that.

Zillah wrote: »

I like good logic. I do not pre-conclude that God cannot exist, I, and the rest of humanity, operate on the initial presumption that the universe is as we can perceive it. Everyone uses this initial assumption, its just that in the case of religion otherwise rational people throw this essential principle aside.

Well yes that maybe the case for some people but not so for everyone. The theory of evolution does not explain everything nor does science or religion but we are only talking about whether the universe had a causer or not, and based on the scientific evidence that we have, there is very strong indication to suggest that it had a causer. Is that causer God? Well that if we define God as being all powerful and as such able to create a universe then it might be a good start. Even a logical one.

Zillah wrote: »

He could have done that! If he existed that is. I'm talking about the parting of the red sea, the miracles of Jesus, the supposed constant intervention through prayer...all those ways in which the faithful claim God interacts with the universe leave the exact kind of evidence as he didn't exist. I find that just a little too convenient. Don't you?

No. The events recorded are miraculous happenings. Did they happen? I believe so but my faith is not based on them. My faith is based on the resurrection of Jesus which if true gives credence for the other ones because He quotes from the books that have these events in them. Did Jesus rise though? Well I’ve given the reason why I believe that to be true many times. I think it is the best starting point and sure if it’s not true it can be researched and concluded as such if one takes the time to do so. Many people because they presuppose that these events cannot happen and therefore did not happen based on what they can observe in nature. Why not study the books and read the record? Many people even atheists have done this and come away convinced that there is no other plausible explanation if you take the facts as they are. Yes you can explain the facts individually but once you apply that explanation to the other facts then no explanation is more plausible than the original explanation which was that Jesus rose from the dead.

Zillah wrote: »

Its just really suspicious that the amount of obviously divine manifestations in the world has decreased in perfect proportion to our ability to understand the world using science. God is on the run and he has few places left to hide. He used to be in every clap of thunder or successful child birth...now he's retreated to the non-existence before time and space. (Didn't Q do that in Star Trek?)

I disagree. If God was so on the run as you suppose then why do so many people including many atheists turn up to debates on the subject? I mean why listen to anyone who puts forth their arguments for God’s existence when discussing these things is futile and worthless because it is rock solid confirmed fact that that God does not exist? Oh and as for God retreating to the before space and time arena. I’m sorry but the Abrahmic religions at least have been saying that He was there long before Darwin was glint in his great great great great great grandfathers eye.

Dont be at yourself

We don't know what created the universe. That's enough reason for some people to assume that God created it, but for me, that just moves the goal posts. If God created it, how does he exist? Who created God? We're left with the same question as the original, only now we've added God in there too. It doesn't answer or explain anything.

Throughout history, God(s) has been used as an explanation about things we didn't know or understand. Early man looked in the sky and saw a Sun God, because they didn't understand the concept of celestial bodies or the orbit of planets. Modern man doesn't understand the origins of the universe, so it is assumed God created it.

For some people, there's God. For other people, there's an unknown, a question mark.

And hey - even if a God did create the universe, what evidence would lead one to believe that He is the Christian God? Is it not equally possible that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe?

robindch

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

And hey - even if a God did create the universe, what evidence would lead one to believe that He is the Christian God? Is it not equally possible that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe?

Recalling John Hume, one could also suggest that the entity that created the universe died. Or there could have been many entities creating all at the same time, some of which survived, or gave birth to little godlets, or succumbed to a hostile takeover from the next dimension, or more variations that I can't think of just now.

Always seems to me that in the absence of any other explanation, the conclusion that the christian god created the universe says much more about the open-mindedness of the thinker than anything specifically about the conclusion itself.

WRT to William Lane Craig's warblings up top, most of those arguments have been around for centuries. Some of them have been around for millennia. And all of them have been very effectively disposed of too.

Soul Winner

robindch wrote: »

WRT to William Lane Craig's warblings up top, most of those arguments have been around for centuries. Some of them have been around for millennia. And all of them have been very effectively disposed of too.

Well obviously they haven't been that effectively disposed of to everyone, otherwise they would not be still doing the rounds. Maybe every generation needs to be reminded of their effective disposal somehow, because as far as I’m concerned they are still valid arguments, and sure if they can be effectively disposed of then please re-dispose again for the benefit of those who have yet to hear the effective disposal for the first time. Excuse our ignorance and all that but as it is all for the betterment of mankind that their effective disposal be revisited I think it is worth the effort.

Soul Winner

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

We don't know what created the universe.

My point exactly. So why assume that it wasn't God?

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

That's enough reason for some people to assume that God created it, but for me, that just moves the goal posts.

Nope. Nobody said anything about assuming who created the universe. Nobody really cared until the Abrahamic religions claimed that territory. Science didn’t even get involved in the debate until millennia later.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

If God created it, how does he exist? Who created God?

To answer the question of who created the universe this is not a valid question. Once we can conclude that God did create the universe only then can we start asking that question. It is not a question that needs to be answered in order to answer the "who created the universe" question.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

We're left with the same question as the original, only now we've added God in there too. It doesn't answer or explain anything.

Well it does if one can conclude that the universe had a creator. Which can be deduced simply from the scientific evidence alone. Everything from nothing cannot come about by nothing, it had to have a causer just like everything else in the universe cannot have a beginning without a causer.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Throughout history, God(s) has been used as an explanation about things we didn't know or understand. Early man looked in the sky and saw a Sun God, because they didn't understand the concept of celestial bodies or the orbit of planets.

Yes but that does not account for the Abrahamic religions. They all claim that their knowledge came by revelation form an outside source which called itself the creator of the universe. They did not invent Him like other religions did with their God. They claim that God came to them and revealed Himself to them, they do not project their understanding of things about the universe onto the universe. Only now is science verifying what they have been claiming for millennia, that the universe has a beginning and the causer of it is not part of that universe, rather is a transcendent being beyond time and space. Science is starting to agree with them.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Modern man doesn't understand the origins of the universe, so it is assumed God created it.

No, modern man does understand the universe very well and is only now catching up with what the Abrahanmic religions have been saying for centuries. That it had a beginning and a beginner, ok science does not admit that it necessarily had a beginier yet but its getting there, it does admit that it had a begining at least.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

For some people, there's God. For other people, there's an unknown, a question mark.

You are right about that.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

And hey - even if a God did create the universe, what evidence would lead one to believe that He is the Christian God? Is it not equally possible that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe?

Well you show me the evidence that a historical Spaghetti Monster ever existed, who has been worshiped as God for centuries who it is claimed rose from the dead as a historical fact for just as long, who when he was alive claimed to be the Spaghetti Monster incarnate, and who was to fulfill ancient Spaghetti Monster prophecies about himself and I'll show you Jesus. Now that is not to say that there is no spaghetti monster but no matter what you say, he hasn't had the influence on history that the Jesus of the Gospels has had.

Dave!

This is bloody pathetic.

At least when JC posts inane drivel, it's couched in enough rhetorical and linguistic gymnastics to render you paralysed with confusion for a few seconds.

This is just a poor troll attempt.

Mena

Dave! wrote: »

This is bloody pathetic.

At least when JC posts inane drivel, it's couched in enough rhetorical and linguistic gymnastics

:pac::P:D :P :P:P ?

CerebralCortex

Soul Winner wrote: »

My point exactly. So why assume that it wasn't God?

Why assume it was god?

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nope. Nobody said anything about assuming who created the universe. Nobody really cared until the Abrahamic religions claimed that territory. Science didn’t even get involved in the debate until millennia later.

Early religion = poor attempt at science.

Soul Winner wrote: »

To answer the question of who created the universe this is not a valid question. Once we can conclude that God did create the universe only then can we start asking that question. It is not a question that needs to be answered in order to answer the "who created the universe" question.

Well I think thats purely opinion.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well it does if one can conclude that the universe had a creator. Which can be deduced simply from the scientific evidence alone. Everything from nothing cannot come about by nothing, it had to have a causer just like everything else in the universe cannot have a beginning without a causer.

What about the causer of the causes? Does this causer have a causer?
I'm not trying to be funny. If everything needs a cause then everything needs a cause.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes but that does not account for the Abrahamic religions. They all claim that their knowledge came by revelation form an outside source which called itself the creator of the universe. They did not invent Him like other religions did with their God. They claim that God came to them and revealed Himself to them, they do not project their understanding of things about the universe onto the universe. Only now is science verifying what they have been claiming for millennia, that the universe has a beginning and the causer of it is not part of that universe, rather is a transcendent being beyond time and space. Science is starting to agree with them.

Science is doing this?

Soul Winner wrote: »

No, modern man does understand the universe very well and is only now catching up with what the Abrahanmic religions have been saying for centuries. That it had a beginning and a beginner, ok science does not admit that it necessarily had a beginier yet but its getting there, it does admit that it had a begining at least.

And of course in the beginning there was god, don't worry SW science is nearly there lolz a little bit slow.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well you show me the evidence that a historical Spaghetti Monster ever existed, who has been worshiped as God for centuries who it is claimed rose from the dead as a historical fact for just as long, who when he was alive claimed to be the Spaghetti Monster incarnate, and who was to fulfill ancient Spaghetti Monster prophecies about himself and I'll show you Jesus. Now that is not to say that there is no spaghetti monster but no matter what you say, he hasn't had the influence on history that the Jesus of the Gospels has had.

A long bloody history it was too

Dave!

Mena wrote: »

:pac::P:D :P :P:P ?

I think his new thing is: BEEP!!!!!!

Can Tourette's manifest itself in textual form...?

robindch

Dave! wrote: »

Can Tourette's manifest itself in textual form...?

Apparently so.

Zillah

I came close to saying I wasn't going to bother with this thread anymore but I'll give it one more shot. Please try to understand...

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes but surely if what existed before and caused what we call “the universe” then how can you call it part of the universe that it caused? It might be part of all things that do exist but that includes and is not confined to the universe that we observe. If I make a cup of tea do I become part of that cup of tea? No! If the universe came from a singularity of nothingness and was caused by nothing, then why do we have something instead of just nothing? If all space-time that ever was and is was enveloped into this singularity of nothingness and it by accident organized itself into the universe as we know it by a big bang then why doesn’t this happen all the time? Why don’t things pop into existence from nothingness all the time if that’s the case? Why only the universe? Everything in our universe that we can observe that does come into existence has a prior cause, so why not the universe? I find it harder to believe that everything that is (i.e. the universe) can come into existence from nothing and by nothing than to believe that the universe has a first cause and therefore a first causer be that God or otherwise. How can everything come from nothing and by nothing? Because that is how it happened as science is discovering more and more if God didn’t create it.

Well no I disagree. We don’t have to answer that question in order to know what caused the universe. If we can deduce that I made a cup of tea at 4.30pm today then we do not need to know what made me in order to deduce that it was me who in fact made that cup of tea. Same with the creator of the universe assuming there is one, all we need to know is whether the universe was made or not. We do not need to know who made it in order to find out whether it made the universe. If it can be deduced that the universe has a creator then we do not need to know what created the creator to know that.

Ok, a few broad points to explain where you went wrong here:

1 - "Singularity of nothingness" is not a collection of words that means anything. This is not a thing.
2 - All of your tea metaphors are completely useless unless you are defining tea as "All that exists, has existed or will exist". We're talking about ALL THINGS, not one small thing.
3 - All your questions about how and why the universe popped into existence from apparently no where are valid...we don't have an answer. Super powerful intelligent entity beyond space and time is not something you have evidence for.
4 -God is a member of the set of "something" in terms of the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Not only that, but he's an amazingly complex and baffling thing to simply be there always. That's far more puzzling than matter and energy popping into existence for no apparent reason.

No that is not what is being said. What is put forth by atheists is that they absolutely don’t know what created the universe or how it was created or what was there if anything beforehand, but they absolutely know for sure that it wasn’t God. And you talk about leaps of unfounded logic. On one hand you admit that you don’t know who did it but you absolutely know for sure that it wasn’t God. And when it is proposed that the universe has too many attributes finely tune for permitting life as we know it to be mere accidental and by deduction it is postulated that what caused the universe was not part of it and therefore not bound by the laws that hold it together and similarly able to act outside those laws within and outside of the universe you poo poo it as rubbish without any foundation at all. It might well be but you don’t know that yet.

1 - Atheists such as myself are not saying that we know for sure it wasn't God. I'm not in the habit of inventing answers about stuff from before time. I'm saying: We have no evidence as to what caused the big bang. Therefore any answer to the question of what caused it is made up. All of the following are baseless assumptions that a sane person should reject pending further investigation: It was an unknown super particle, God did it, it was an explosion from a previous big bang's collapse, Santa sneezed.

2 - Yes I poo poo the extra-universal God theory as its a contradition in terms and you have no evidence. Evidence please.

I beg to differ. Science which you claim to embrace has given definitive proof with the most current discoveries that the universe was not eternal in the past. It had a beginning. So therefore it was not all that ever was if it had a beginning. It can only be that if it was eternal in the past but it wasn’t as science itself has shown conclusively. But you think that it doesn’t need a causer so therefore you conclude that nothing created the universe and like I said that takes more faith than belief that God it even if that is just made up.

Please read a dictionary. Universe does not mean "matter and energy that came from the big bang". It means "all that is, was and will be". This is important for when we ask the question "Why is there something rather than nothing"? God is something.

You sure about that? All the Abrahamic religions believe that God created the universe from nothing. I can give you chapter and verse if you like. That places God outside the universe because He was around before it was created. Most other religions claim that their God formed the worlds from stuff that was already there so you could argue that scientific discoveries do make them void. Not the Abrahamic religions though. They’ve being saying this right from the start.

Please read a dictionary. I was asking for evidence, the insane ramblings of ancient Israelites do not constitute evidence from the dawn of existence.

I can't believe I just had to say that to another human being.

I disagree. Why can’t the causer assuming there is one, be all powerful, and all loving and so forth? I see no reason to believe that such a being assuming it is the creator cannot have these attributes simply because it is deduced that He is the creator. Why not?

Its baseless assumption. One baseless assumption among a hundred billion other baseless assumptions. I'm saying we do not know the answer yet, whereas you're plucking one you like out of the air and insisting its true because you think its plausible.

Hold on. “If the universe has a cause then that is not the cause”? How so? How can the cause of the universe not be the cause of the universe?

1 - The universe is "everything".
2 - Any hypothetical cause is "something".
3 - "Something" is a part of "everything".

You must understand that the question "What caused the big bang?" is subtly different to the question "Why is there something other than nothing"?

But if one of those finely tune life permitting parameters is off by percentages of percent then you cannot have a life permitting universe. You either have a universe that expands too quickly for stars to and therefore end up with a universe full of nothing but hydrogen or helium or something , or a universe that expands to slowly and thus squashes all the subatomic particles so that not even atoms can exist never mind anything else up the chain. It is the narrow knife edge of life permitting parameters that the universe is actually on that enables it to permit life as we know it. You may call it chance but I’m open to a creator concept until this concept is totally blown out of the water by science instead of science strengthening it all the time.

You're still making a gigantic assumption. I've explained the reason for why its a very poor assumption but I'll try again. God help me, I'll try again. With a hypothetical:

Lets say there's no God for now. Lets take a look at 100,000 versions of the universe. In all but, lets say, three versions it implodes or flies apart due to parameters unlike our own. By chance those three get life. That life looks around and goes "God must have fined tuned the universe to suit our existence as its far too unlikely!"

Please tell me you understand?

I’ve seen Ken Miller’s talk on the bacterial flagellum and I thought he explained very well that there is no need for a designer but it doesn’t prove that they’re wasn’t a designer. And Dawkin’s approach to the development of the eye was pretty poor. It is all hypothesized not proven and only tries to explain it on the basis that no designer need apply. There are many postulated hypothesis which are all based on the assumption that there is no designer. The better approach would be to say that we don’t know if there is a designer and we are not sure if this is how it happened but we are giving it you on the basis that there is no designer.

Ok, this is how it went:

1 - Over a couple of centuries science works out that life appears to have emerged without inteligent direction due to natural selection.
2 - Some guy comes up with ID and says "Lets see if we can find something that would definately need to have been designed rather than developed via natural selection".
3 - The afformentioned guy and his colleagues either fail utterly or lie.
4 - Afformentioned guy's rich powerful Christian friends spend millions spreading those lies because it supports their beliefs.

Thats the entire ID movement right there, no embellishment.

A mixture of water, gravity and some sort of indentation in the ground caused the puddle though. What caused water and gravity?

Its....its a metaphor... You have to understand that, right? This is a cruel joke you're playing on your old pal Zillah, right?

If morality is a result of evolution then the doing of some socially unacceptable behaviors like premeditatedly and for no reason at all killing somebody cannot equate to murder any more than a lion killing a zebra equates to murder. Why? Because all we are is accidental, purposeless, meaningless DNA propagating spinoffs of an evolutionary process which accidentally evolved relatively late on the scene, on an infinitesimal and insignificant speck of dust we call planet earth floating around in a hostile meaningless and destined to die in a heat death of the universe along with everything else. Why do we call the killing of children immoral when there are no objective moral values? The fact is that is not only socially unacceptable behavior but reprehensible behavior. Why though? From where comes this morality if not from God?

We call the killing of a child immoral because we're programmed to feel that way by evolution. I don't understand why you're having such difficulty with this concept. Is it confusing because the reaction is such a strong one? How is it fundamentally any different to other very strong reactions such as the sexual arousal we feel with a mate or the rising fury of when someone threatens those we love?

I’m tired of reading it. What you fail to see is that what is presented to you is not accepted as adequate by you which is not our fault. You want molecules marked with “Made by God” sorry but you’re not going to get that.

The "Made by God" thing has nothing to do with it. There are a billion billion things we can assert exist for which there is no evidence. We'd go uselessly insane if we didn't reject them until we get evidence. You do this in every case that I do it except your Abrahamic God. The fact that you find this one baseless assumption quite appealing does not change my standards for evidence.

Well yes that maybe the case for some people but not so for everyone. The theory of evolution does not explain everything nor does science or religion but we are only talking about whether the universe had a causer or not, and based on the scientific evidence that we have, there is very strong indication to suggest that it had a causer. Is that causer God? Well that if we define God as being all powerful and as such able to create a universe then it might be a good start. Even a logical one.

1 - There is no evidence that there was a cause to the big bang.
2 - There is no evidence that, should such a cause exist, it was God.
3 - Thats the only logical position.

No. The events recorded are miraculous happenings. Did they happen? I believe so but my faith is not based on them. My faith is based on the resurrection of Jesus which if true gives credence for the other ones because He quotes from the books that have these events in them. Did Jesus rise though? Well I’ve given the reason why I believe that to be true many times. I think it is the best starting point and sure if it’s not true it can be researched and concluded as such if one takes the time to do so. Many people because they presuppose that these events cannot happen and therefore did not happen based on what they can observe in nature. Why not study the books and read the record? Many people even atheists have done this and come away convinced that there is no other plausible explanation if you take the facts as they are. Yes you can explain the facts individually but once you apply that explanation to the other facts then no explanation is more plausible than the original explanation which was that Jesus rose from the dead.

This has nothing to do with our discussion really but I'll bite: It is not rational to conclude that a man you never met broke the laws of physics based entirely upon the testimony of unknown individuals, which was in turn recorded by unknown individuals, from a time where superstition was endemic.

Where do you think society would be today if everyone applied your absurdly sloppy standards? You think you can put a space station in orbit using maths that an unknown individual with no education insists if valid? Why do you think they're doing things like spending billions on particle accelerators? Its because getting answers is really really hard. It takes discipline and scepticism, not child-like trust and naive assumptions.

I disagree. If God was so on the run as you suppose then why do so many people including many atheists turn up to debates on the subject?

Where did I say the issue was entirely concluded? I said God is on the run. He is. People used to think lightning was caused by Gods. People used to think the sun was God. The moon, animals...virtually everything in existence has been thought to be divine by someone somewhere. Now, science has driven him out of all of those things by explaining what they are. God exists only in the places we don't understand. You've had to resort to putting him at the dawn of time, one of the last places we cannot yet see with the ever illuminating eye of science.

I’m sorry but the Abrahmic religions at least have been saying that He was there long before Darwin was glint in his great great great great great grandfathers eye.

Er, so? Yes, your beliefs were originally conceived by ancient peoples who knew less about the universe than the average modern ten year old, whats your point?

Zillah

As you can see I have gone to great lengths to respond despite my better judgement and the advice of my peers. Please make a sincere effort to understand what I'm saying before you respond or I'll not deign to return.

AtomicHorror

Soul Winner wrote: »

My point exactly. So why assume that it wasn't God?

Why assume it was? For all the evidence you have, it could have been Odin, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or someone we haven't made up yet.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

My point exactly. So why assume that it wasn't God?

Because we (humanity) don't know what created the universe. Therefore any person that claims to know is, well, most likely wrong/making stuff up.

This is a point that is often missed I think when people think about religion and God. It isn't simply a question of whether or not your particular god exists. It is also a question of how realistic or plausible it is that a bunch of humans know he does or does not exists.

It is impossible to say what did or did not create the universe (or even if such a concept is valid considering time, and thus causality, appears to be a property of the universe).

But it is relatively easy to say that we, humanity, have no clue. Anyone claiming otherwise is undoubtedly wrong.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nope. Nobody said anything about assuming who created the universe. Nobody really cared until the Abrahamic religions claimed that territory.

The Abrahamic religions were not (by a long stretch) the first religions to put forward a supernatural creation story. Heck they don't appear to be the first to put forward their supernatural creation story.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well it does if one can conclude that the universe had a creator. Which can be deduced simply from the scientific evidence alone.

Please demonstrate the evidence that suggests that the universe had a "creator" (one assumes you mean an intelligence)

Soul Winner wrote: »

Everything from nothing cannot come about by nothing

Says who?

Soul Winner wrote: »

, it had to have a causer just like everything else in the universe cannot have a beginning without a causer.

How can you have a "causer" without time existing?

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes but that does not account for the Abrahamic religions. They all claim that their knowledge came by revelation form an outside source which called itself the creator of the universe. They did not invent Him like other religions did with their God.

ALL religions with creation stories claim revelation from an outside source. :rolleyes:

No religion thinks they were just inventing their own gods.

Soul Winner wrote: »

They claim that God came to them and revealed Himself to them, they do not project their understanding of things about the universe onto the universe.

They most certainly did. Even God himself is modeled after a rather traditional concept of a authority/father figure, a mix between a father and a king.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Only now is science verifying what they have been claiming for millennia, that the universe has a beginning and the causer of it is not part of that universe, rather is a transcendent being beyond time and space. Science is starting to agree with them.

They got the beginning bit right, which 50/50 really, it either did or did not have a beginning and in fact most religions have a beginning of the universe in their creation stories.

Unfortunately they got pretty much everything else wrong. Not that impressive.

Zillah

Wicknight wrote: »

The Abrahamic religions were not (by a long stretch) the first religions to put forward a supernatural creation story. Heck they don't appear to be the first to put forward their supernatural creation story.

I lol'd

Soul Winner

Zillah wrote: »

I came close to saying I wasn't going to bother with this thread anymore but I'll give it one more shot. Please try to understand...

Ok, I promise to try and understand.

Zillah wrote: »

Ok, a few broad points to explain where you went wrong here:

1 - "Singularity of nothingness" is not a collection of words that means anything. This is not a thing.

I totally agree.

Zillah wrote: »

2 - All of your tea metaphors are completely useless unless you are defining tea as "All that exists, has existed or will exist". We're talking about ALL THINGS, not one small thing.

I disagree. You are assuming that the universe is all that ever existed and all that ever will exist. That is not the case. The universe had its beginning in the Big Bang. But what caused the big bang? You say that it doesn’t need a causer and therefore has no cause and therefore you contend that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. All I’m saying is, is that that takes more faith than believing that God did it. Ok imagine of you can absolutory nothing, not a thing, nada and from this comes everything. That’s rabbit out of the hat stuff. But the Judaic/Christian view contends that yes it came from nothing but not by nothing, rather it came because before there was anything God was there to create it. You cannot get anything from nothing especially everything. If everything came from nothing then that is a miracle. To us the universe incorporates everything but if it came from nothing then how? How can everything come from nothing?

Zillah wrote: »

3 - All your questions about how and why the universe popped into existence from apparently no where are valid...we don't have an answer. Super powerful intelligent entity beyond space and time is not something you have evidence for.

The famous English atheist astronomer turned agnostic Sir Fred Hoyle stated the following: “Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Zillah wrote: »

4 -God is a member of the set of "something" in terms of the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Not only that, but he's an amazingly complex and baffling thing to simply be there always. That's far more puzzling than matter and energy popping into existence for no apparent reason.

If God does exist and He did create everything that we call “the universe” then that means that He existed before the universe was created and therefore cannot be part of this universe he created. Surely you concede this point even though you don’t actually believe He exists?

Zillah wrote: »

1 - Atheists such as myself are not saying that we know for sure it wasn't God. I'm not in the habit of inventing answers about stuff from before time. I'm saying: We have no evidence as to what caused the big bang. Therefore any answer to the question of what caused it is made up. All of the following are baseless assumptions that a sane person should reject pending further investigation: It was an unknown super particle, God did it, it was an explosion from a previous big bang's collapse, Santa sneezed.

I have to cite Sir Fred Hoyle again on this point. He at least conceded that an intellect beyond anything man can aspire to meddled with physics, “it must have” he would say. He came to this conclusion by empirical study of the facts as he knew them. I thought that is what science was? Conclusions based on research of what can be studied. If we don’t listen to the conclusions of the likes of Hoyle then who do we listen to?

Zillah wrote: »

2 - Yes I poo poo the extra-universal God theory as its a contradition in terms and you have no evidence. Evidence please.

God by your own definition is an “amazingly complex and baffling thing” or as I would put it “a Super Intellect”. Surely what Hoyle concluded to be a super intellect can only be attributed to a being beyond human comprehension. There might not be particles with “Made by God” stamped on them, but evidence like what Hoyle concluded about, is strong enough to at least leave the open that I might have been God, God being defined in the terms described above.

Zillah wrote: »

Please read a dictionary. Universe does not mean "matter and energy that came from the big bang". It means "all that is, was and will be". This is important for when we ask the question "Why is there something rather than nothing"? God is something.

The universe is not all that ever was and ever will be if it had a beginning. And the most accepted theory in science today with regards to how the universe came into being is the Big Bang theory. And the Big Bang theory postulates a beginning from nothing, so again my question is: “How can everything come from nothing?” I do get your point that God is something. But if He is “something” then that means He exists. And if He exists then that means He created the universe. And if He created the universe then that means He was around before the universe was created, because in order for One to create a universe One must actually exist before endeavoring to do so. Again you don’t have to believe in God to concede this point.

Zillah wrote: »

Please read a dictionary. I was asking for evidence, the insane ramblings of ancient Israelites do not constitute evidence from the dawn of existence.

Nor was it presented as such, but it does show you that they were onto something when in their scriptures God placed Himself outside and separate from the creation. Clever move for such long time ago. All the other pagan creation myths have God inside the creation, rearranging things that were already there. Not so with the Hebrews. “In the beginning God created” the word created in this verse is ‘Bara’ which means to create from nothing at all and is only used with God as its subject. There are other words in the Hebrew that translate “create” but they refer to a type of creating that needs something there to create from. Not ‘Bara’ though. So all those centuries ago the Hebrews were saying that from nothing God created everything and now science is telling us that the most plausible explanation of how the universe came into being is from nothing. Funny that.

Zillah wrote: »

I can't believe I just had to say that to another human being.

I’m sure you’ll get over it.

Zillah wrote: »

Its baseless assumption. One baseless assumption among a hundred billion other baseless assumptions. I'm saying we do not know the answer yet, whereas you're plucking one you like out of the air and insisting its true because you think its plausible.

Well no not really, I’m telling you what I believe to be true and then I’m telling that I have good reason to believe it based on discoveries made in science. That is not a baseless assumption. You say you don’t know how the universe came into being but you poo poo me for saying that I believe God did it. I’m not telling you to believe what I believe, I’m just showing you that I have good reasons to believe what I actually believe.

Zillah wrote: »

1 - The universe is "everything".

No it’s not unless you conclude that nothing made everything. How can nothing make everything?

Zillah wrote: »

2 - Any hypothetical cause is "something".

Yes. But if nothing is the cause then how can nothing be something?

Zillah wrote: »

3 - "Something" is a part of "everything".

Something is but not “nothing”. Nothing is not part of everything because nothing is well “nothing”. You could say that nothing simply isn’t.

Zillah wrote: »

You must understand that the question "What caused the big bang?" is subtly different to the question "Why is there something other than nothing"?

I agree but what is your point?

Zillah wrote: »

You're still making a gigantic assumption. I've explained the reason for why its a very poor assumption but I'll try again. God help me, I'll try again. With a hypothetical:

Lets say there's no God for now. Lets take a look at 100,000 versions of the universe. In all but, lets say, three versions it implodes or flies apart due to parameters unlike our own. By chance those three get life. That life looks around and goes "God must have fined tuned the universe to suit our existence as its far too unlikely!"

Please tell me you understand?

I understand your point of view perfectly. It is you who can’t see mine. But anyway let us assume that there is not God. And that your analogy is accurate. Then what? People made God up? Of course I agree 100%. That is exactly what happened if we take all your preconditions as true.

Zillah wrote: »

Ok, this is how it went:

1 - Over a couple of centuries science works out that life appears to have emerged without inteligent direction due to natural selection.
2 - Some guy comes up with ID and says "Lets see if we can find something that would definately need to have been designed rather than developed via natural selection".
3 - The afformentioned guy and his colleagues either fail utterly or lie.
4 - Afformentioned guy's rich powerful Christian friends spend millions spreading those lies because it supports their beliefs.

Thats the entire ID movement right there, no embellishment.

Point 1 is strongly supported but not proven. Science has shown that some things in nature do not appear to need a designer, but that is not proving that they do not actually have a designer. And if what we can take from the cosmological discoveries has any foundation, that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics in such a way as to enable carbon based life to exist, then it is still an open debate IMO.

Zillah wrote: »

Its....its a metaphor... You have to understand that, right? This is a cruel joke you're playing on your old pal Zillah, right?

Me? Never

Zillah wrote: »

We call the killing of a child immoral because we're programmed to feel that way by evolution. I don't understand why you're having such difficulty with this concept. Is it confusing because the reaction is such a strong one? How is it fundamentally any different to other very strong reactions such as the sexual arousal we feel with a mate or the rising fury of when someone threatens those we love?

Why call it immoral though? What’s so immoral about it? From an evolutionary point of view I would call it socially non-advantageous for the culprit and detrimental to the health of the herd mentality, but not immoral. Immoral has that whole right and wrong thing going on with it. How does one define right and wrong without a God or a higher standard in which to aspire to? To what do we measure the rightness and wrongness of something to if no objective values exist? All you are saying to me is that you believe they do exist and you express it because you find the killing of children morally reprehensible as do I.

Zillah wrote: »

The "Made by God" thing has nothing to do with it. There are a billion billion things we can assert exist for which there is no evidence. We'd go uselessly insane if we didn't reject them until we get evidence. You do this in every case that I do it except your Abrahamic God. The fact that you find this one baseless assumption quite appealing does not change my standards for evidence.

I don’t though. Just because I don’t hide the fact that I believe in God and that I believe He created all things is not the same as me squashing reality into that frame of reference as you suppose. I have given here and over in the Christianity forum the reason why I believe it many times. Some reasons that I believe are personally experience reasons, reasons that only I can benefit from which I never hold out as proof anyway. Some are biblical and some historical and some as discussed here scientific. I have plenty of reason to believe in God and have no reasons to not believe in Him. I don’t expect anyone else to adopt my reasons as reason why they should believe in Him. What I don’t like is being poo poo’d for it for no good reason. My faith might be laughable to some but I don’t care. Doesn’t bother me, give me good reasons to stop believing and I will.

Zillah wrote: »

1 - There is no evidence that there was a cause to the big bang.
2 - There is no evidence that, should such a cause exist, it was God.
3 - Thats the only logical position.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In any case, if the universe had a beginning then it logically follows that it had a beginner. This is the main reason Fred Hoyle remained atheistically agnostic. He just could not believe in a beginner which is why he refused to accept the Big Bang theory but everyday science is showing us more and more evidence that the universe had a beginning and is not eternal in the past and is not in steady sate or whatever else state. It had a beginning and therefore a beginner and as an already believer in ‘God did it’ for other reasons, this just strengthens that, I am not bending reality to fit my beliefs here.

Zillah wrote: »

This has nothing to do with our discussion really but I'll bite: It is not rational to conclude that a man you never met broke the laws of physics based entirely upon the testimony of unknown individuals, which was in turn recorded by unknown individuals, from a time where superstition was endemic.

Way too big a subject to go into here and maybe I should not have brought it up the last time. All I will say is that based on what you have just stated I conclude that you know very little about the subject matter. I’ll wager that you haven’t spent five hours of your life studying the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, which if true gives a basis to believe in His other claims. No point in saying you don’t believe it happened because the laws of physics prohibit it. He claimed to be God not just a mortal man who is only governed by natural laws. And if God exists as we have discussed at length here then a resurrection from the dead should be no big deal to Him (to us yes) but not to Him. If God can create the universe from nothing and provide the subatomic stratum from which to permit carbon based life then a resurrection should be no big deal. But I digress on this point.

Zillah wrote: »

Where do you think society would be today if everyone applied your absurdly sloppy standards? You think you can put a space station in orbit using maths that an unknown individual with no education insists if valid? Why do you think they're doing things like spending billions on particle accelerators? Its because getting answers is really really hard. It takes discipline and scepticism, not child-like trust and naive assumptions.

Yeah but was the €6Billion it cost to fund the LHC project only taken from atheists tax Euro’s or gullible religious fools as well? That makes it theirs too doesn’t it? Hey look, I’m all for Large Haydon Particle Accelerators. Bring it on, I want to know more too. If there is something that they can uncover that proves there is no God then let’s have it.

Zillah wrote: »

Where did I say the issue was entirely concluded? I said God is on the run. He is. People used to think lightning was caused by Gods. People used to think the sun was God. The moon, animals...virtually everything in existence has been thought to be divine by someone somewhere. Now, science has driven him out of all of those things by explaining what they are. God exists only in the places we don't understand. You've had to resort to putting him at the dawn of time, one of the last places we cannot yet see with the ever illuminating eye of science.

The Judaic/Christian God was never believed to be anything other than a being which transcended space and time. He has always been believed in by Christians to have created everything but never part of what was created. He was never believed to be lightening or the sun and so forth by Jews or Christians. What you are implying is only applicable to the many pagans religions of the world not the Abrahamic ones.

Zillah wrote: »

Er, so? Yes, your beliefs were originally conceived by ancient peoples who knew less about the universe than the average modern ten year old, whats your point?

They never claimed they knew anything about the universe except to say that God created it from nothing. The Bible is not a scientific journal nor was it designed as such. It just declares things from the perspective of a particular people at particular times in history and in historical and poetic terms. And if their concept of God is only a concept among other concepts to be considered, then that God does not exists, but if what they say about that God intruding into their history is true then we are dealing with a being that is beyond space and time and human comprehension. I don't expect you to be fascinated by this but I am.

Dont be at yourself

Soul Winner wrote:

You say that it doesn’t need a causer and therefore has no cause and therefore you contend that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. All I’m saying is, is that that takes more faith than believing that God did it. Ok imagine of you can absolutory nothing, not a thing, nada and from this comes everything. That’s rabbit out of the hat stuff. But the Judaic/Christian view contends that yes it came from nothing but not by nothing, rather it came because before there was anything God was there to create it. You cannot get anything from nothing especially everything. If everything came from nothing then that is a miracle.

Certainly, in our universe, you can't create something from nothing. However, that doesn't really apply to the creation of the universe, of which we know absolutely nothing about. You shouldn't apply the rules and logic of the universe itself to prove or disprove different theories regarding to the creation of that universe.

If God can exist before time in contradiction to the laws of our universe, why can't some other cause?

If we don’t listen to the conclusions of the likes of Hoyle then who do we listen to?

Hoyle, as you describe him, is an agnostic. He hasn't concluded that God exists - his own personal experience tells him that it is a possibility. And that's probably true for most athiests - I don't know that God doesn't exist, and I recognise that there is a possibility that he does exist. However, for me - and plenty of Hoyle's peers, it must be said - it is a very, very minute possibility.

Soul Winner wrote:

All the other pagan creation myths have God inside the creation, rearranging things that were already there. Not so with the Hebrews.

I'm pretty sure that the opening verses of the old testament stick God inside creation (what with there being time and everything) moving things about, screwing in lightbulbs and so on.

Soul Winner wrote:

Well no not really, I’m telling you what I believe to be true and then I’m telling that I have good reason to believe it based on discoveries made in science.

Lets hear them!

Soul Winner wrote:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

No athiest will claim otherwise. Just because we don't have any evidence as to the cause of the creation of the universe, it doesn't mean there wasn't a cause. Of course, it doesn't mean that there was a cause either, and it certainly doesn't mean that that cause was God.

Soul Winner wrote:

I’ll wager that you haven’t spent five hours of your life studying the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus

Well, that's just it. There is no evidence. If the resurrection of Jesus had a basis firmer than anecdotes retold, rewritten and retranslated over a period of 2,000 years, everyone and his mother would be queuing up for mass on a Sunday.

There is no clear-cut, verifiable evidence. And because there's no evidence - of any of Jesus' miracles - it's a very big leap to take everything at face value and build your life around it.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

I disagree. You are assuming that the universe is all that ever existed and all that ever will exist. That is not the case. The universe had its beginning in the Big Bang. But what caused the big bang? You say that it doesn’t need a causer and therefore has no cause and therefore you contend that the universe came from nothing and by nothing. All I’m saying is, is that that takes more faith than believing that God did it.

That isn't what he is saying.

He is saying that your assertion that the big bang must have had a "cause" is flawed thinking, because time itself appears to have originated with the big bang.

Saying therefore that everything must have a cause (something that holds true only in this universe as far as we know, and appears to not always hold even in this universe) and therefore the universe must have had a cause is an unfounded assertion.

The universe might have had a cause, but equally such a concept could be nonsense in the reality that existed "before" the big bang. One cannot use the assertion that it must have had a cause to start arguing for the existence of a particular god (leaving aside that that argument is in of itself seriously flawed and silly)

One of the very interesting things that scientists have been discovering as they delve deeper into the systems that govern our own universe is that the assertions we make at this relatively large scale (humans, buildings, cars, trees) do not hold either at tiny or large extremes of nature. For example locality, the idea that something cannot influence something else without physically interacting with it over a distance of space, does not appear to hold true in certain conditions. Equally the concept of "now" and the uniform flow of time doesn't hold over large distances at different velocities.

The flaw (one of them at least) with the idea that the universe must have had a cause and that cause must be God, is that it is applying the rules of inside this universe in certain circumstances to the formation of the universe itself, which doesn't work.

It is like wondering why the referee hasn't blown his whistle to stop play when you are in a sports shop and the casher has just picked up a football you are buying and is placing it in a bag to give to you. The rules of the game of football apply only to the game of football. They are meaningless outside of the game.

Equally the rules of the universe apply to the universe. Space and time apply to the universe. The concepts are rather meaningless when discussing something else.

Zillah

Soul Winner wrote: »

I disagree. You are assuming that the universe is all that ever existed and all that ever will exist. That is not the case.

I'm sorry we must have gotten our wires crossed! I'm speaking English, you must be using another language that is very like it but makes no sense.

Could you possibly use normal English for the purposes of our discussion?

The famous English atheist astronomer turned agnostic Sir Fred Hoyle stated the following: “Would you not say to yourself, "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule." Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Thats nice. The fact that you have found a fancy sounding person that supports an irrational view does not make a view any less irrational.

If God does exist and He did create everything that we call “the universe” then that means that He existed before the universe was created and therefore cannot be part of this universe he created. Surely you concede this point even though you don’t actually believe He exists?

Again I must insist that we use English rather than whatever makey-upey language you're using.

I have to cite Sir Fred Hoyle again on this point. He at least conceded that an intellect beyond anything man can aspire to meddled with physics, “it must have” he would say. He came to this conclusion by empirical study of the facts as he knew them. I thought that is what science was? Conclusions based on research of what can be studied. If we don’t listen to the conclusions of the likes of Hoyle then who do we listen to?

People who don't make stuff up without evidence.

God by your own definition is an “amazingly complex and baffling thing” or as I would put it “a Super Intellect”. Surely what Hoyle concluded to be a super intellect can only be attributed to a being beyond human comprehension. There might not be particles with “Made by God” stamped on them, but evidence like what Hoyle concluded about, is strong enough to at least leave the open that I might have been God, God being defined in the terms described above.

Lets be clear, you're still relying on the "finely tuned" argument that I've already countered, right?

The universe is not all that ever was and ever will be if it had a beginning. And the most accepted theory in science today with regards to how the universe came into being is the Big Bang theory.

SPEAKEY ENGLISH PLEASE???

“How can everything come from nothing?” I do get your point that God is something. But if He is “something” then that means He exists. And if He exists then that means He created the universe.

What?

WHAT?!

Nor was it presented as such, but it does show you that they were onto something when in their scriptures God placed Himself outside and separate from the creation. Clever move for such long time ago. All the other pagan creation myths have God inside the creation, rearranging things that were already there. Not so with the Hebrews. “In the beginning God created” the word created in this verse is ‘Bara’ which means to create from nothing at all and is only used with God as its subject. There are other words in the Hebrew that translate “create” but they refer to a type of creating that needs something there to create from. Not ‘Bara’ though. So all those centuries ago the Hebrews were saying that from nothing God created everything and now science is telling us that the most plausible explanation of how the universe came into being is from nothing. Funny that.

Here, take a copy of my new book, "Luminescent Turtles pooed out the universe from nothing".

SEE MY TRANSCENDENTAL UNDERSTANDING OF EXISTENCE!

I’m sure you’ll get over it.

Its becoming increasingly difficult.

Well no not really, I’m telling you what I believe to be true and then I’m telling that I have good reason to believe it based on discoveries made in science. That is not a baseless assumption. You say you don’t know how the universe came into being but you poo poo me for saying that I believe God did it. I’m not telling you to believe what I believe, I’m just showing you that I have good reasons to believe what I actually believe.

I'm telling you two things:
- Your reasons are completely ridiculous.
- Your conclusions are not supported by science.

If the above two things were not correct statements then someone would have been awarded several Nobel prizes for their work in the field of Pre-Universal Physics and Theology-Thermodynamics Integration Studies or some such nonesense.

No it’s not unless you conclude that nothing made everything. How can nothing make everything?

We don't know.

Yes. But if nothing is the cause then how can nothing be something?

We don't know.

Something is but not “nothing”. Nothing is not part of everything because nothing is well “nothing”. You could say that nothing simply isn’t.

Correct. Isn't.

I agree but what is your point?

The Big Bang refers to the appearance of observable matter and energy and the dimensions of space and time as we know them. It is potentially a far smaller concept than "The Universe".

I understand your point of view perfectly. It is you who can’t see mine. But anyway let us assume that there is not God. And that your analogy is accurate. Then what? People made God up? Of course I agree 100%. That is exactly what happened if we take all your preconditions as true.

If you do actually understand my argument then you've just conceded that we can't rationally conclude that God exists without further information.

Point 1 is strongly supported but not proven. Science has shown that some things in nature do not appear to need a designer, but that is not proving that they do not actually have a designer. And if what we can take from the cosmological discoveries has any foundation, that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics in such a way as to enable carbon based life to exist, then it is still an open debate IMO.

As much as anything can be "proven", it has been.

Science has shown that life on earth can be explained as having resulted from a combination of non-intelligent factors. Adding a trans-dimensional super intelligence to the mix because of some very old books would not be good science. You have to be able to see that.

Why call it immoral though?

Its a way to rationalise our feelings.

What’s so immoral about it?

We feel very strongly on the matter.

From an evolutionary point of view I would call it socially non-advantageous for the culprit and detrimental to the health of the herd mentality, but not immoral.

From an evolutionary point of view you'll do whatever the hell evolution dictates, and that is to consider it repugnant, reprehensible and to have a strong bias towards considering it an objective phenomenon rather than a subjective one, because saying "That is evil" is way more convincing than saying "I don't like that".

Immoral has that whole right and wrong thing going on with it. How does one define right and wrong without a God or a higher standard in which to aspire to? To what do we measure the rightness and wrongness of something to if no objective values exist?

It is based on a confluence of genetic pre-disposition and societal factors.

All you are saying to me is that you believe they do exist and you express it because you find the killing of children morally reprehensible as do I.

I'm not sure what the sentence means.

I don’t though. Just because I don’t hide the fact that I believe in God and that I believe He created all things is not the same as me squashing reality into that frame of reference as you suppose. I have given here and over in the Christianity forum the reason why I believe it many times. Some reasons that I believe are personally experience reasons, reasons that only I can benefit from which I never hold out as proof anyway. Some are biblical and some historical and some as discussed here scientific. I have plenty of reason to believe in God and have no reasons to not believe in Him. I don’t expect anyone else to adopt my reasons as reason why they should believe in Him. What I don’t like is being poo poo’d for it for no good reason. My faith might be laughable to some but I don’t care. Doesn’t bother me, give me good reasons to stop believing and I will.

There's little I can say aside from pointing that your philosophical arguments are flawed, your personal impressions are irrelevant, and your claims to scientific support are false.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

In the context of billions of equally baseless assumptions, yes it is. Absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence. The fact that there is no evidence for the universe having been a result of the poo of luminescent turtles is evidence that the universe is not the result of the poo of luminescent turtles.

In any case, if the universe had a beginning then it logically follows that it had a beginner. This is the main reason Fred Hoyle remained atheistically agnostic. He just could not believe in a beginner which is why he refused to accept the Big Bang theory but everyday science is showing us more and more evidence that the universe had a beginning and is not eternal in the past and is not in steady sate or whatever else state. It had a beginning and therefore a beginner and as an already believer in ‘God did it’ for other reasons, this just strengthens that, I am not bending reality to fit my beliefs here.

Correct, you're not bending anything, you're making things up. The notion that a beginning needs a beginner is an assumption.

Way too big a subject to go into here and maybe I should not have brought it up the last time. All I will say is that based on what you have just stated I conclude that you know very little about the subject matter. I’ll wager that you haven’t spent five hours of your life studying the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, which if true gives a basis to believe in His other claims. No point in saying you don’t believe it happened because the laws of physics prohibit it. He claimed to be God not just a mortal man who is only governed by natural laws. And if God exists as we have discussed at length here then a resurrection from the dead should be no big deal to Him (to us yes) but not to Him. If God can create the universe from nothing and provide the subatomic stratum from which to permit carbon based life then a resurrection should be no big deal. But I digress on this point.

Lets not get into it.

Yeah but was the €6Billion it cost to fund the LHC project only taken from atheists tax Euro’s or gullible religious fools as well? That makes it theirs too doesn’t it? Hey look, I’m all for Large Haydon Particle Accelerators. Bring it on, I want to know more too. If there is something that they can uncover that proves there is no God then let’s have it.

My point is that if the rest of humanity accepted your standards for evidence and logic then we would have no useable technology. People would be trying to make square blocks of sticks fly into space.

The Judaic/Christian God was never believed to be anything other than a being which transcended space and time. He has always been believed in by Christians to have created everything but never part of what was created. He was never believed to be lightening or the sun and so forth by Jews or Christians. What you are implying is only applicable to the many pagans religions of the world not the Abrahamic ones.

Not true though. The Abramahic religions used to claim that God was the cause of life's diversity, the destruction of cities, the source of plagues, the inspiration for huge literary tracts etc. Science has been consistently debunking such claims and God has been retreating ever since. It used to be quite acceptable for people to assume a disease was a curse from God, these days we disregard such absurd claims.

They never claimed they knew anything about the universe except to say that God created it from nothing. The Bible is not a scientific journal nor was it designed as such. It just declares things from the perspective of a particular people at particular times in history and in historical and poetic terms. And if their concept of God is only a concept among other concepts to be considered, then that God does not exists, but if what they say about that God intruding into their history is true then we are dealing with a being that is beyond space and time and human comprehension. I don't expect you to be fascinated by this but I am.

Trust me, I do find it fascinating. Thats why I just responded to this thesis of absurdity. I find it a compelling and terrifying mystery that another otherwise intelligent human being can assert the things that you have.

Galvasean

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Why assume it was? For all the evidence you have, it could have been Odin, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or someone we haven't made up yet.

We've made up so many Gods at this point that if areal God does exist, chances are it be like one of the ones we made up by coincidence.

Soul Winner

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Certainly, in our universe, you can't create something from nothing. However, that doesn't really apply to the creation of the universe, of which we know absolutely nothing about.

Absolutely nothing? We now know it had a beginning. That's huge. Do you know how long science believed that the universe just always was? Eternal in the past? For centuries. It is only recently that it was discovered to have had a beginning and the more science is finding out the more it is strengthening this view. So if it had a beginning then either the universe came about from nothing and by nothing or it was brought into being by another transcendent reality not part of our universe's reality.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

You shouldn't apply the rules and logic of the universe itself to prove or disprove different theories regarding to the creation of that universe.

This has already happened. Einstein came on the scene.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

If God can exist before time in contradiction to the laws of our universe, why can't some other cause?

Well assuming God can then how could anything else cause it unless God also caused that. "Well then what caused God?" you might say. Well nothing caused God. Only what begins to exists needs a cause. If God does exist then He never began to exist. He is eternal, not the universe, and if He is eternal in the future then He is also eternal in the past and therefore has no cause.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Hoyle, as you describe him, is an agnostic. He hasn't concluded that God exists - his own personal experience tells him that it is a possibility. And that's probably true for most atheists - I don't know that God doesn't exist, and I recognise that there is a possibility that he does exist. However, for me - and plenty of Hoyle's peers, it must be said - it is a very, very minute possibility.

If matter is all that there is then how can matter make matter? Matter when broken down into its fundamental elements is a made thing. Elementary particles which make up atoms, atoms which make up molecules and so on up the chain to a rock or a tree or a human being. What made the subatomic particles though? Nothing? Something made them. You don't believe that can be a transcendent consciousness well then fine. I do. Am I right? I think so. Why not? You might ask the same of me regarding what you believe. I would say "maybe you're right." When you get down to the bare bones of the matter we are left with randomness that defies comprehension and yet this primordial randomness has in it the capacity to organize itself into complex carbon based life forms. A mindless, purposeless universe would not do that and if it has done that and we are but the byproducts of that process then what we are talking about here is just more mindlessness. It's not debating and seeking after truth, its mindless garbage with no meaning to it even though we might believe it has.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that the opening verses of the old testament stick God inside creation (what with there being time and everything) moving things about, screwing in lightbulbs and so on.

"In the beginning God created..." That puts God before the beginning and the creation "In" the beginning...

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Lets hear them!

Thought I gave some already? But just to recap. The constants that are present in the early miniscule moments of the big bang have life permitting parameters so finely tuned that for all of them to have been caused by nothing and to have come about from nothing are in the degrees of magnitude so unlikely to happen by chance that for mathematicians to even attempt to calculate it would be ridiculous. That is why there are many seasoned physicist and scientists trying to push science to a new paradigm shift in how science views things. Interesting article here about this very thing. I feel it is only a matter of time before science itself changes in order to deal with the many problems it faces today. It has done it before, I'm sure it will handle the change, nay it will be the better by far for that change.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

No athiest will claim otherwise. Just because we don't have any evidence as to the cause of the creation of the universe, it doesn't mean there wasn't a cause. Of course, it doesn't mean that there was a cause either, and it certainly doesn't mean that that cause was God.

I agree, the absence of any evidence doesn't mean any of those things.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Well, that's just it. There is no evidence. If the resurrection of Jesus had a basis firmer than anecdotes retold, rewritten and retranslated over a period of 2,000 years, everyone and his mother would be queuing up for mass on a Sunday.

I doubt it very much. I contend that even if God did peep out through the clouds and announce in thunderous tones that He does in fact exist then you will still have those who will contend that it was super mass hallucination due to mass airborne drug inducement by super aliens or something.

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

There is no clear-cut, verifiable evidence. And because there's no evidence - of any of Jesus' miracles - it's a very big leap to take everything at face value and build your life around it.

I agree. But we do not need to believe in any of Jesus' miracles in order to settle the big one, the resurrection. If that one happened then that gives basis for believing the others also happened. And that big one can you can be convinced of by careful study of the facts, that the resurrection issue assumes to be true. This has been discussed ad-infinitum in the Christianity forum so I suggest check here for one of the full discussion on it to see why there are those who have a basis for believing it. It is not just blind faith which says “the Bibles says so it must be true” so that's good enough for me. It is an historical account of an historical person that can be scrutinize and cross referenced and concluded about. There have been many over the years like Frank Morrison who have gone out with the specific intention of disproving it by exposing themselves to the facts as there presented to us in the accepted literature and have come back convinced that there is no other explanation that can adequately explain the assumed facts except the resurrection itself. Sherlock’s "Trial of the witnesses", Morrison's "Who moved the stone", Professor Greenleaf's -Trial of the Evangelists", C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" are all great reads when it comes to this subject. I contend that you cannot have a proper informed opinion on any subject until you have done a bit of research into it. Same with this subject. If you can read any or all of the books I've cited and still not be convinced then that is fine, at least you took the time to look, most people who deny the resurrection have never spent two hours of their life researching or reading anything about it to have an proper informed opinion on it. They contend that ressurections can't happen so therefore they didn't happen so the reason people believe it did must be wrong because it can't happen and therefore didn't happen and on they go. At least read a few books on the subject that people have put years of their life into compiling on the subject and get an informed opinion on it.


Wick and Z, I will reply to your other posts tomorrow if I get a min. Going to bed now. Wrecked

Zillah

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well assuming God can then how could anything else cause it unless God also caused that. "Well then what caused God?" you might say. Well nothing caused God. Only what begins to exists needs a cause. If God does exist then He never began to exist. He is eternal, not the universe, and if He is eternal in the future then He is also eternal in the past and therefore has no cause.

So...the cause needs to be something that has not had a beginning? It doesn't necessarily have to be a sentience? What if someone were to propose a timeless super particle that can cause big bangs, would that satisfy you? Would that not be a more probable proposal than a timeless super intelligence?

Dades

Galvasean wrote: »

We've made up so many Gods at this point that if areal God does exist, chances are it be like one of the ones we made up by coincidence.

I'd imagine few here entertain the notion that any intelligent entity responsible for our universe is ANYTHING like a God as described by humans.

I mean, honestly, something with such incomprehensible power is hardly going to share petty human emotions such as pride, or ego or anger. Or constantly read the thoughts of every human that ever lived, jotting down on a ledger the times they transgressed some ambiguous set of rules provided. Or care if someone's skirt is too short, or if their hair is uncovered, or if they ate a rasher.

If we're going to assume there's an intelligent designer, at least credit it with some intelligence.

CerebralCortex

Soul Winner wrote: »

I agree. But we do not need to believe in any of Jesus' miracles in order to settle the big one, the resurrection. If that one happened then that gives basis for believing the others also happened. And that big one can you can be convinced of by careful study of the facts, that the resurrection issue assumes to be true. This has been discussed ad-infinitum in the Christianity forum so I suggest check here for one of the full discussion on it to see why there are those who have a basis for believing it. It is not just blind faith which says “the Bibles says so it must be true” so that's good enough for me. It is an historical account of an historical person that can be scrutinize and cross referenced and concluded about. There have been many over the years like Frank Morrison who have gone out with the specific intention of disproving it by exposing themselves to the facts as there presented to us in the accepted literature and have come back convinced that there is no other explanation that can adequately explain the assumed facts except the resurrection itself. Sherlock’s "Trial of the witnesses", Morrison's "Who moved the stone", Professor Greenleaf's -Trial of the Evangelists", C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity" are all great reads when it comes to this subject. I contend that you cannot have a proper informed opinion on any subject until you have done a bit of research into it. Same with this subject. If you can read any or all of the books I've cited and still not be convinced then that is fine, at least you took the time to look, most people who deny the resurrection have never spent two hours of their life researching or reading anything about it to have an proper informed opinion on it. They contend that ressurections can't happen so therefore they didn't happen so the reason people believe it did must be wrong because it can't happen and therefore didn't happen and on they go. At least read a few books on the subject that people have put years of their life into compiling on the subject and get an informed opinion on it.


Wick and Z, I will reply to your other posts tomorrow if I get a min. Going to bed now. Wrecked

Okay so say we establish that the resurrection has occurred, that is a human body that was dead clinically, and then three days later the same human being is alive. Pretty awesome but my question is what does it prove? What does it say to you that its not saying to me? If of course its actually what happened and even if it did crazy unimaginable things happen in the universe everyday, why do you hold this thing in such high regard?

Galvasean

Dades wrote: »

I mean, honestly, something with such incomprehensible power is hardly going to share petty human emotions such as pride, or ego or anger. Or constantly read the thoughts of every human that ever lived, jotting down on a ledger the times they transgressed some ambiguous set of rules provided.

Pray (or don't y'know what I mean) that i never come into a position of great power.

Soul Winner

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Okay so say we establish that the resurrection has occurred, that is a human body that was dead clinically, and then three days later the same human being is alive. Pretty awesome but my question is what does it prove? What does it say to you that its not saying to me? If of course its actually what happened and even if it did crazy unimaginable things happen in the universe everyday, why do you hold this thing in such high regard?

An excellent question and one which I hope I can answer as articulately as possible. Right so let us assume that this is an actually fact of history and that what the reporters give in their accounts about Jesus resurrection is actually true. Then that means that it is highly unlikely that they would make up the other stuff that it is claimed Jesus said and did. Why? Because for one these reporters have seen the risen Christ with their own eyes and would be careful to report the events of His earthly ministry as accurately as possible, and that includes the things He said and did.

Now it’s not that somebody rose from the dead even in the supernatural way that the Gospels declare Jesus rose, but it is the fact that it is Jesus who rose that is the amazing thing. Think about it for a second with an open mind. It is the One who made all the other outrageous claims about Himself for which He was accused as a blasphemer by the Jewish leaders and rightly so if He actually wasn’t who He claimed to be, who actually rose. The Jews were right to adjudge Him as a blasphemer if He was not who He claimed Himself to be. His family were right to try to take Him away because they believed He was beside Himself in madness. People today are right to think that Christianity is a “Looney Bin” religion if Christ did not rise from the dead as a fact of History, even the apostle Paul said that “If Christ be not risen then our faith is vain and that we are false witnesses of God” if in fact God did not raise up the Christ as the Church has proclaimed for two millennia. Jesus Himself is a looney if God did not actually raise Him from the dead because He at least believed the things He claimed about Himself even if nobody else did, or if He didn’t really believe them and knew them to be false then that makes Him crook which is worse.

So we have what C.S Lewis calls the starling alternate. A man whom you must accept for what He Himself claims to be or you must conclude that He was either a nutcase or a malefactor. You cannot put Him on the same shelf with other respected founders of religion like Buddha, Confucius or Mohamed because they at least never made such claims about themselves. For instance you will never hear Mohammad saying that He is the bread of life that came down from God out of heaven or that he was the water of life and that if anyone drinks from me will have eternal life. Confucius never said ”Before Abraham was I was” or that “I beheld Satan cast from heaven like lightening” which happened long before even Abraham lived. Buddha never said that his death meant anything, in fact He is on record as saying that he means nothing, that all he can do is leave you the way that he followed, which was what eight fold path which brought you to a trance like state that broke the chain of Tanya which is what holds all mankind in bondage and you can live out this life having been changed by this middle road which will eventual lead you to Nirvana his definition of eternal life and you become one with ultimate reality at death and so on. He offered that experience, he never offered himself as the way. Only Jesus and all the nutty religious fruit cakes say the things that Jesus said and yet Jesus is respected along with all these other respect founders of religion as being merely a good and wise teacher but not supernatural. Well he cannot be both good and wise without also being supernatural. “Well why not?” You may ask. Well if He was good but not supernatural then he couldn’t be wise because to also be wise He must know that the claims He makes are not true. Or he could be wise and not supernatural but not good because He knows that what He claims is not true and is lying about them to make others think impossible things about Him for some crazy egotistical reasons so He would not be good. He can’t be both good and wise and not be also supernatural, He is either all three or one of the others, He can’t be both without also being who He claimed to be.

So how can you resolve the issue? That is what the resurrection does. If you can research that issue and from that research conclude that there is no other explanation for the facts that pertain to this story that explain the facts of this story better than that than He actually rose. Then that will give you a basis for believing all the other claims. If the one who went around making these ridiculous claims about Himself including the claim that He would die and three days later will come out of the tomb and this actually happened then I don’t know about you but that gives what He said prior to His death and resurrection real validity. That means He actually is who He claimed to be and that the Jewish leaders were wrong about Him. And that what He said regarding future events will also come to pass.

Here is a sample of some of the claims Jesus made about Himself:

“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 16:13-18

He never denies what Peter said, in fact He praises Peter for knowing it.


”The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.” John 4:25-26


This does not prove that He was in fact the Messiah but He at least thought He was. You don’t get this in other respected founders of religion. Sure they claim weird stuff but not about themselves. If what Jesus said to this woman is not true then Jesus was either deluded or a liar. No middle ground. If you said something like that to me I would think you were nuts, but if you die under the same circumstances as Jesus did and come forth from the grave as it is reported He did then I will take a second look at what you said to me about being the Messiah. If that’s true then that gives a basis for believing the rest..


"Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee." John 9:35-37


"But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death." Matthew 26:63-66


The fact that the priest tore his clothes is proof enough that they perceive what Jesus was saying was blasphemy. As a side bar, this ruling was illegal. It was held at night for one which in their own law was not legal, and at a time that they called “High Sabbath”. It was an illegal gathering and ruling because not all the members of the Sanhedrin were present which was required under their own law so to pronounce death in such circumstances without a proper trial which was highly illegal. This is shown in stark clarity by what the priest says. What need we of anymore witnesses. Well they did need more witnesses. A full Sanhedrin was required and that is why they held it at night, because they knew that if all the members were present that they could not have gotten Him convicted on these grounds. It wasn’t incumbent on Jesus to say anything but they presented that He speak and on these words they condemned Him. Totally illegal and they knew it.


Anyway we have these stories because they were first preached by the disciples. If their account can be found to false for whatever reason then we can dismiss the account but I fail to see how it can be. I’ll leave Professor Simon Greenleaf with the last word on this. Sorry about all the religion in the atheist forum but I was asked the question


Prof Simon Greenleaf – The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by The Rules of Evidence Administered in Courts of Justice, read more here

“And first, as to their honesty. Here they are entitled to the benefit of the general course of human experience, that men ordinarily speak the truth, when they have no prevailing motive or inducement to the contrary. This presumption, to which we have before alluded, is applied in courts of justice, even to witnesses whose integrity is not wholly free from suspicion; much more is it applicable to the evangelists, whose testimony went against all their worldly interests

The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teaching of his disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes imprisonments, torments and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propogate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution

The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually rose from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem amom men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.

Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact, that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature. Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for this fabrication.”

CerebralCortex

Thanks Sw for the long answer, but I'm still left wondering why you find these "extraordinary" events so much more extraordinary than the known and unknown universe? The answer is great in the context of the bible and the claims Jesus made but my question wasn't. Now I'm just confused that piece about good, wise and supernatural is a head wrecker. Could you elaborate? Good means making supernatural claims?

aidan24326

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well obviously they haven't been that effectively disposed of to everyone, otherwise they would not be still doing the rounds. Maybe every generation needs to be reminded of their effective disposal somehow, because as far as I’m concerned they are still valid arguments

No they aren't. As you've been told they have been trashed to pieces over and over again.

Huh? ACCORDING TO GROWING NUMBERS OF SCIENTISTS, the laws and constants of nature are so "finely-tuned," and so many "coincidences" have occurred to allow for the possibility of life, the universe must have come into existence through intentional planning and intelligence. In fact, this "fine-tuning" is so pronounced, and the "coincidences" are so numerous, many scientists have come to espouse "The Anthropic Principle," which contends that the universe was brought into existence intentionally for the sake of producing mankind. Even those who do not accept The Anthropic Principle admit to the "fine-tuning" and conclude that the universe is "too contrived" to be a chance event. More here

You don't understand what the anthropic principle is. Quite simply it's hardly surprising that we find oursleves in a universe that is capable of producing something like us. What other type of universe could we find ourselves in? And even if the physical constants are a put-up-job, to suggest that you know the answer to who or what was responsible is surely far greater arrogance than you'll ever see from the atheist posters here (and we're the ones accused of it)

Dades wrote: »

I'd imagine few here entertain the notion that any intelligent entity responsible for our universe is ANYTHING like a God as described by humans.

I mean, honestly, something with such incomprehensible power is hardly going to share petty human emotions such as pride, or ego or anger. Or constantly read the thoughts of every human that ever lived, jotting down on a ledger the times they transgressed some ambiguous set of rules provided. Or care if someone's skirt is too short, or if their hair is uncovered, or if they ate a rasher.

If we're going to assume there's an intelligent designer, at least credit it with some intelligence.

That pretty much sums it up for me. It's rather pathetic that people think a superintelligence capable of creating a universe would be saddled with the same petty little shortcomings as us mere mortals. What a truly bizarre notion.

Soul Winner

Wicknight wrote: »

That isn't what he is saying.

He is saying that your assertion that the big bang must have had a "cause" is flawed thinking, because time itself appears to have originated with the big bang.

No, what is asserted is that everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore it has a cause. Now you might say that the cause was not God but it still was caused by something, and that something either purposely fine tuned it to permit carbon based life like ours, or it was mere chance happening. If finely tuned deliberately then that suggests that behind this fine tuning lies an intellect which surpasses by orders of magnitude more than anything known to us. Jesus calls God sprit and they which worship Him must worship in spirit. If God is spirit and is also eternal then He does not have or need a cause nor is He made of the same stuff that we are made of.

Wicknight wrote: »

Saying therefore that everything must have a cause (something that holds true only in this universe as far as we know, and appears to not always hold even in this universe) and therefore the universe must have had a cause is an unfounded assertion.

Can you give us an example of something that began to exist in our universe that had no cause?

Wicknight wrote: »

The universe might have had a cause, but equally such a concept could be nonsense in the reality that existed "before" the big bang. One cannot use the assertion that it must have had a cause to start arguing for the existence of a particular god (leaving aside that that argument is in of itself seriously flawed and silly)

That argument is only seriously flawed and silly when you make it so by having the presupposition that it cannot be true based on what can be observed in nature. Of course it is seriously flawed and silly if all you are ever going to do is measure everything with that (flawed) presupposition. You have taken the possibility away by that presupposition so of course is is going to be seriously flawed and silly.

Wicknight wrote: »

One of the very interesting things that scientists have been discovering as they delve deeper into the systems that govern our own universe is that the assertions we make at this relatively large scale (humans, buildings, cars, trees) do not hold either at tiny or large extremes of nature. For example locality, the idea that something cannot influence something else without physically interacting with it over a distance of space, does not appear to hold true in certain conditions. Equally the concept of "now" and the uniform flow of time doesn't hold over large distances at different velocities.

I know. I pointed to one of the leading voices (Amit Goswami) in this realm of quantum mechanics in an earlier reply to NekkidBibleMan. Here it is again, really interesting interview, he has some very radical views but IMO probably the only way science can go if it wants to begin to answer the questions it has inevitable lead itself to ask. Like what is consciousness? Does anyone want to argue about whether consciousness exists? It does exist. We are conscious of our surroundings therefore consciousness exist. But we cannot see it and yet it still exists. But how, where and probably most importantly why does it exist? These are not jus philosophical questions any more, they are questions that are beginning to overlap with quantum mechanics and quantum theory questions. Anyway it’s a good read even if you don’t accept what he is postulating as the new way for science to precede. I’m not a scientist so I don’t really have an opinion on it as such; I just find what scientists are doing and saying more and more fascinating by the day.

Wicknight wrote: »

The flaw (one of them at least) with the idea that the universe must have had a cause and that cause must be God, is that it is applying the rules of inside this universe in certain circumstances to the formation of the universe itself, which doesn't work.

It is like wondering why the referee hasn't blown his whistle to stop play when you are in a sports shop and the casher has just picked up a football you are buying and is placing it in a bag to give to you. The rules of the game of football apply only to the game of football. They are meaningless outside of the game.

Equally the rules of the universe apply to the universe. Space and time apply to the universe. The concepts are rather meaningless when discussing something else.

Wick you have many strong attributes but analogy is not one of them. We know from science that the universe had a beginning. So what we are left with is speculation as to how it began. If it came from nothing as the big bang theory postulates, then how? How can all the matter and energy that is obviously there now in the universe have come from nothing at all without having a cause? If I hear a loud bang in the street and go out to investigate it, the first thing I will ask is; “What made that loud bang?”. If you turn to me and say; “Nothing, it just happened” a confused frown would appear on my face. That confused frown was caused by your answer to my question. Your answer was caused by my question. My question was caused by the loud bang I heard. So what caused the loud bang? What applies to small bangs surely applies to big bangs. If the universe was created then what else but an eternal super intellectual being could have caused it? What are the other plausible alternatives? If it is assumed that it was actually created or caused by something then what is so outlandish about believing that it was caused by what we call God, or a super intellectual and eternal being?

CerebralCortex

Soul Winner wrote: »

....If finely tuned deliberately then that suggests that behind this fine tuning lies an intellect which surpasses by orders of magnitude more than anything known to us. Jesus calls God sprit and they which worship Him must worship in spirit. If God is spirit and is also eternal then He does not have or need a cause nor is He made of the same stuff that we are made of.

Thats a big leap. No? You'd have to take what Jesus said as fact most including myself in here obviously don't even if he did actually say it so it doesn't really stand in the argument.

Soul Winner wrote: »

...How can all the matter and energy that is obviously there now in the universe have come from nothing at all without having a cause?

Has that actually been said in here.

Soul Winner wrote: »

...If the universe was created then what else but an eternal super intellectual being could have caused it?...

I don't know. Does anybody know that?

Soul Winner wrote: »

What are the other plausible alternatives? If it is assumed that it was actually created or caused by something then what is so outlandish about believing that it was caused by what we call God, or a super intellectual and eternal being?

Because its just a guess.

Soul Winner

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Thats a big leap. No? You'd have to take what Jesus said as fact most including myself in here obviously don't even if he did actually say it so it doesn't really stand in the argument.

Well yeah. What basis does one have to say that what Jesus said was false? You cannot believe what He says but that does not prove what He says to be false. At some point you must settle for something that you will believe in and inexorably you will found those beliefs based on something that you have read or heard and live your life accordingly. That is why the resurrection is so important. If you can believe that that happened then that is a good basis to believe the other things, and yes that becomes a leap of faith but then that does happen no matter you decide you want to base you life on.

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Has that actually been said in here.

Yes it has been suggested that the universe does not have a cause.

CerebralCortex wrote: »

I don't know. Does anybody know that?

Don’t know.

MrPudding

Soul Winner wrote: »

Now you might say that the cause was not God but it still was caused by something, and that something either purposely fine tuned it to permit carbon based life like ours, or it was mere chance happening.

If you are actually interested in this subject, have a read of this book. It is very interesting and an enjoyable enough read:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Six-Numbers-Universe-Science/dp/0753810220

MrP

Soul Winner

MrPudding wrote: »

If you are actually interested in this subject, have a read of this book. It is very interesting and an enjoyable enough read:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Six-Numbers-Universe-Science/dp/0753810220

MrP

Thanks MrP. Looks very interesting. I've read his name mentioned in a few articles I came across on the net and but haven't read any of his books. Will start with this one. Cheers.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

No, what is asserted is that everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist, therefore it has a cause.

As I said, that is an unfounded assertion.

It appears to not apply to everything in our universe, let alone things "outside" of our spacetime

Soul Winner wrote: »

Now you might say that the cause was not God but it still was caused by something, and that something either purposely fine tuned it to permit carbon based life like ours, or it was mere chance happening.

The universe is not fine tuned to permit carbon based life. You can tell that by how little evidence of carbon based life there is in the universe.

It would take a very egotistical race of creatures to look around the universe, see no other evidence of life, and conclude that the universe was "fine tuned" for them to exist.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Can you give us an example of something that began to exist in our universe that had no cause?

Yes, sub-atomic particles can exist or be altered in a way that breaks the classical views of causality and locality. This is part of what is known in physics as "entanglement" and it is very very weird when contrasted to our day to day lives and how we view spacetime and interactions between "things"

Soul Winner wrote: »

You have taken the possibility away by that presupposition so of course is is going to be seriously flawed and silly.

well yes, that is the point.

Your assertion that everything that begins must have a cause does not hold universily as you claim. For a start there is absolutely no reason to believe it holds when one removes time from the equation as one would do when discussing "before" or "outside" the universe. It appears not to even hold in side the universe.

So naturally when one factors that into the mix your assertion, and the conclusions you draw from that, become silly.

Soul Winner wrote: »

I just find what scientists are doing and saying more and more fascinating by the day.

Amit Goswami is, I'm not sure that translates to a general "scientists"

Goswami has been musing about his ideas of a universal spiritualism in place of matter since the early 1990s. It is not science, it is his is own personal philosophy inspired by Eastern mysticism.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Wick you have many strong attributes but analogy is not one of them. We know from science that the universe had a beginning. So what we are left with is speculation as to how it began. If it came from nothing as the big bang theory postulates, then how?

The big bang theory does not postulate that "it came from nothing". The big bang theory does not postulate anything about what happened before the big bang because we don't even know if such a concept as "before" applies.

You really need to understand this because it is crucial to this discussion, all evidence and models suggest that time itself is a product of the big bang.

Therefore concepts such as "before" and ideas of cause and effect are rather null and void when discussing any possible trigger of the big bang.

Soul Winner wrote: »

If I hear a loud bang in the street and go out to investigate it, the first thing I will ask is; “What made that loud bang?”. If you turn to me and say; “Nothing, it just happened” a confused frown would appear on my face.

That is because that big bang happened inside this universe on a local scale.

Scientists have known for a while that observing a particle, such as an electron, causes the collapse of what is known as it's probability wave. Before a particle is observed it exists in some blurry state of probability. It might be here, it might be there. You don't actually know until you observe it in some fashion (interact with it). And the amazing thing is that it isn't a case that it is in one spot but you just don't know until you look, experiments have revealed that it doesn't actually exist in a single spot until you interact with it by observing it.

The really amazing thing is that observing a particle appears to effect how it was in the past over great distances. The probability waves of light are bend around stars. Light can go one way or the other. When you observe a light particle you collapse the probability wave and determine that it went one way around the star. Until you do that the light particle is in a blurred state of having gone one way or the other. The really weird thing is that it went around the star millions of years ago. So how can observing it now cause the probability wave 5 million years ago to collapse?

It is when one starts looking at things like this one realizes that our notions of how the universe work based on our personal experiences are really only half the picture. Our "rules" are formed because of the circumstances that the broader rules of the universe find themselves in when dealing with our local interactions.

Things like causality and locality apply to use because of the circumstances of our particular patch of the universe but they do not necessarily apply universally to all things in the universe and there is certain no reason to believe they apply to the universe itself.

Soul Winner wrote: »

If the universe was created then what else but an eternal super intellectual being could have caused it? What are the other plausible alternatives?

Well for a start I wouldn't rate an eternal super intellectual being as "plausible"

If something did cause the universe to spring into existence it is far more likely to be along the lines of something like Zillah's fundamental super particle.

Soul Winner wrote: »

If it is assumed that it was actually created or caused by something then what is so outlandish about believing that it was caused by what we call God, or a super intellectual and eternal being?

Why would someone believe that?

--amadeus--

It is very frustrating to read througha long thread, decide what you want to say and then discover that Wicknight says it all much more elgantly than you can in the last post!

So I agree with everything he says. The concept of "the universe must have a creator because it has a start point" is invalid because the notion of start and stop only make sense in the context of linear time. remove linear time (as we seem to under the context of a big bang event) and you lose teh concept of a start. Remove our understanding of causuality - as per the excellent examples above, and you start to understand that every assumption we make has to be questioned. Yes even the assumption of beginning and end, cause and effect. They simply do NOT apply at the levels we are discussing.

So you are applying "conventional" models of understanding to explain events and that leaves gaps and holes. These holes are caused by the fact that our traditional understanding doesn't apply or work in these conditions. Real scientists look at these gaps and ask how they can change thier assumptions and models to fit the facts as observed. Religious apologists alter the facts - adding agents such as god - in order to both explain facts and maintain (not alter) thier assumptions and understanding.